Today's Top Stories AT&T (NYSE: T) is once again facing criticism that, by not including any traffic that goes over its wireless femtocells for its wireline U-verse broadband users, it is violating the FCC's net neutrality rules. The telco's move is part of its usage based billing (UBB) practice, in which users can be charged extra if they go over their monthly set bandwidth usage limit. As more consumers cut their ties with the PSTN in favor of wireless voice, AT&T has been offering femtocell devices that can improve wireless device reception by routing voice traffic over the customer's broadband network. The problem is that if a U-verse customer uses a femtocell from one of AT&T's competitors like Sprint (NYSE: S) or Verizon (NYSE: VZ) Wireless and connects it to the telco's gateway, that traffic will count against their data cap. "Wireless traffic from your AT&T 3G MicroCell does not count toward your monthly home broadband plan," said the AT&T U-verse FAQ page, adding that users have to register with AT&T so their wireless and wireline U-verse accounts can be linked together. Of course, AT&T is not alone. Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA), another UBB advocate, would count online video usage if it came from another source like Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX), but not from its own Streampix service. Public Knowledge, a consumer advocacy group focused on Internet and technology issues, has asked the FCC to investigate Comcast's data caps. They are still waiting for some answer as to what action the regulator will take on this issue. "There is one easy-to-understand concern about data caps that everyone should be able to agree on: ISPs should not be able to use data caps anticompetitively," said Michael Weinberg, a staff attorney with Public Knowledge, in a blog post. "The company that connects you to the internet should not be able to abuse its control of that connection in order to make its unrelated services more attractive." UBB and net neutrality have been controversial issues in both the United States and Canada. In 2010, the FCC passed net neutrality guidelines that require service providers to treat all Internet communications equally. Since that time, the guidelines have been challenged in court by various service providers, including Verizon. For more:
- Public Knowledge has this post
- here's FierceWireless' take Related articles:
AT&T's femtocell policy raises net neutrality concerns, group warns
FCC appoints UBB supporter Steven Wildman as chief economist Read more about: AT&T
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TekSavvy, a Canadian competitive broadband provider, has been granted more time to build a defense against Voltage Picture's lawsuit to get the names of subscribers who use P2P service to download its films. As reported in techdirt, a Canadian judge gave TekSavvy more time by granting another adjournment. Given the complexity of the case, the judge wanted more information on three issues: what an IP address is; Canada's new copyright laws; and what effect the case will have. A live tweet from the courtroom by Financial Post reporter Christine Dobby reported that the judge said the issue "will not be resolved in a single day." By gaining this extension TekSavvy will be to get help from the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) on this case. Voltage Pictures, a film company, began a mass lawsuit suing U.S. broadband users who shared its film The Hurt Locker on BitTorrent last year. Later, it decided to focus on the Canadian market, with TekSavvy being one of its initial targets. For more:
- techdirt has this article
Related articles:
Canada's capacity-based wholesale billing regulations go into effect Wed.
Canada's CRTC introduces policy to bolster IP network migration
Canada's CRTC ruling drives TekSavvy to raise broadband prices
CRTC sets new wholesale ISP billing model based on capacity, not volume Read more about: File Sharing
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Reliance Communications on Wednesday employed Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) for a $1 billion network management project which it says will improve the performance and customer experience of its wireless and wireline networks. Under the terms of the contract, which extends the service provider's existing relationship with the vendor, Alcatel-Lucent will integrate Reliance's wireless and wireline teams into a common management organization. One of the benefits of this integration is it will create a set of standardized tools, processes and best practices that can be used across all of Reliance's diverse communications business lines. Having these standardized elements will enable the service provider to proactively manage the customer experience regardless of what kind of network, device or connection they are using to access services. Serving as the foundation for the new model will be a next-gen OSS back office system that Alcatel-Lucent will build and run. This new system includes real-time optimization tools to improve network performance across Reliance's wireless, wireline, long-distance, fiber and utilities' functions. Punit Garg, chief executive officer of Global and Enterprise Business at Reliance Communications, said its business customers "will be able to deploy state-of-the-art data services with high confidence underpinned by our integrated network and expertise of ALU." Like its main competitor Ericsson (Nasdaq: ERIC), Alcatel-Lucent has continued to make a name for itself in the managed services business, providing solutions to over 100 service providers. While no two service providers have the same philosophy on whether or not to outsource functions to a third-party, this win with Reliance illustrates that large operators are finding value in managed services. For more:
- see the release
Related articles:
Reliance Globalcom brings 40G, OTN onto its FNAL backhaul network
Reliance Globalcom upgrades FEA network to 100G
Reliance abandons IPO for FLAG submarine cable unit Read more about: Reliance Communicaions
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Hibernia Atlantic on Wednesday changed its name to Hibernia Networks, a move that reflects the fact that it has grown beyond being just a submarine cable operator to a broader network solutions provider. Bjarni Thorvardarson, chief executive officer for Hibernia Networks said that "Hibernia has evolved well beyond its original transatlantic serving area" and as "Hibernia Networks, our company reflects a unified team offering worldwide network services to a focused, but expanding, customer base." The service provider will continue to offer a set of "specialized" products addressing three key segments: wholesale, financial and media. One area in particular where Hibernia has been expanding its focus on is the media industry segment. Under the new Hibernia Networks moniker, the provider will integrate Hibernia Media on the Hibernia Networks platform. Last August, Hibernia enhanced its media capabilities in both the United States and Europe when it acquired TeliaSonera International MediaConnect (TSIC). As a result of the TSIC purchase, the service provider's media clients will be able to access 17 European markets. In addition to its media segment, Hibernia is active on the financial services front. Through a partnership with Cross River Fiber, the service provider will be able to become another alternative player for New Jersey financial trading companies that need low latency network solutions. While Hibernia is presenting itself as a solutions provider to the high growth financial and media industries, it remains a key player in the submarine cable segment with a global network that has 120 points of presence (PoPs) in North America, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Europe and the Pacific Rim, and operates five Hibernia-owned cable landing stations. For more:
- see the release Related articles:
Hibernia Atlantic brings Ethernet services to IO New Jersey
Hibernia strengthens media capabilities by acquiring TeliaSonera's MediaConnect business
Hibernia Atlantic names CME Group as latest PoP on its GFN
Hibernia Atlantic taps into New Jersey's need for low latency Read more about: Submarine Cable, Hibernia
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Brocade (Nasdaq: BRCD) on Monday named networking and telecom industry veteran Lloyd Carney as its new CEO.  | | Carney (Image source: Brocade) | Carney, who will also take a seat on Brocade's board of directors, replacing Michael Klayko, who served as Brocade's CEO since 2005. In August, Klayko announced he would step down as CEO, and stayed with the company as they searched for a new CEO. He did not cite a reason why he was leaving the company. Over the course of his almost 30 years in the IT industry, Carney has served in various high level executive positions at a number of networking and semiconductor vendors. He has a long track record of leading startups whose technology and products attracted larger players. Prior to coming to Brocade, Carney was the CEO of Xsigo Systems, a private company that built data center virtualization solutions with a particular focus on Software Defined Networking (SDN) for cloud computing environments. Xsigo was acquired by Oracle in July. Carney also served as the CEO of management software vendor Micromuse, which was purchased by IBM in 2005 and became a major piece of IBM's Tivoli framework. In addition, he served as COO at Juniper (NYSE: JNPR) and as president of Nortel's Core IP, Wireless Internet and the Enterprise divisions after it acquired Bay Networks in 1998. He comes to a company that is a dominant player in the SAN (storage area network) equipment and Ethernet switching market segments. Infonetics said that the SAN equipment market rose 15 percent between Q1 and Q2 2012 as shipments of Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) products increased. Trailing only Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO), Brocade commands a 99 percent market share in the FCoE market segment. For more:
- see the release Related articles:
Brocade's CEO Michael Klayko to step down
Week in research: Cloud takes hold in Australia; data center growth drives demand for equipment
Dell'Oro: Cisco, Juniper duke it out at top of 100 Gigabit Ethernet router market
Mammoth Networks upgrades core network sites to Ethernet Read more about: Brocade
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