Today's Top Stories CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL) has become the object of a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of investors who purchased the telco's stock between Aug. 8, 2012, and Feb. 14, 2013. Commenced in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by law firm Levi & Korsinsky, the complaint alleges that the telco made "false and misleading" statements about its dividend cut. It is alleged that CenturyLink both misled investors on the strength of its free cash flow and that "as a result of the Company's misleading statements, CenturyLink stock traded at an artificially inflated price." The telco said on Feb. 13 that it would cut its dividend from 72.5 cents to 54 cents per share and also announced the repurchase of up to $2 billion of its outstanding common stock. When news of these actions emerged, the company's shares fell from $41.69 on the day of the announcement to a close of $32.27 the following day. Neither CenturyLink nor Levi & Korsinsky responded to a request for comment about the suit. For more:
- see the release Related articles:
CenturyLink consumer revenue up in Q1, predicts low broadband growth in Q2
CenturyLink resolves most Internet outage issues; core router to blame
CenturyLink suffers Internet outage in 21 states Read more about: CenturyLink
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BT (NYSE: BT) will begin offering consumers a 300/20 Mbps Fiber to the Premises (FTTP) speed option in 50 markets where it has already deployed fiber-based network infrastructure by the end of this year. Current FTTP customers will have the option of upgrading to BT's £50 ($76) per month Unlimited package, which does not place any limit on how much bandwidth a user can consume each month. David McDonald, GM of consumer broadband for BT, said in a release that its "unlimited products really are 'Totally Unlimited', and BT will never do anything to slow these customers down." The introduction of the 300 Mbps product follows an announcement in January that BT Openreach began a technical trial of its 220/20 Mbps Generic Ethernet Access (GEA) FTTP service in four of its telephone exchange areas. In tandem with the new 300 Mbps option, the service provider is introducing the Home Hub 5 enhanced home network router, which incorporates dual-band WiFi, four Gigabit Ethernet ports and an integrated VDSL modem. Although the new router includes the majority of the same features of the Hub 4 device BT launched in May, one of the key advantages of the Hub 5 product is that BT Infinity customers won't need to use a separate Openreach modem to connect to a Fiber to the Cabinet (FTTC) line. BT said the Hub 5 will become a standard part of all BT Infinity packages and will be offered to existing Infinity customers who sign a new contract for free or "for a small fee." The telco will also continue to offer Hub 4 as part of its copper-based DSL broadband packages. For more:
- see the release Related articles:
BT to run 200 Mbps FTTP trial in 4 UK telephone exchanges
BT cuts price of 330 Mbps wholesale FTTP by 37%
BT's Livingston resigns, Patterson to take reigns in September
Ofcom will investigate BT, BSkyB dispute of TV channels Read more about: Fttp
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TDS Telecom, the wireline subsidiary of Telephone and Data Systems, Inc. (NYSE: TDS), has put the finishing touches on its first American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) stimulus-funded project near Orchard Farm, Mo., which will serve about 150 households. Troy Krantz, manager of project implementation at TDS, said in a release that this is the first project they have "completely finished," adding that they will be "wrapping up the majority of our remaining projects by the end of the year." During this project, the telco installed about three miles of fiber cabling and three Remote Terminal (RT) cabinets that house Broadband Loop Carrier (BLC) equipment in its Orchard Farm Telephone Co. subsidiary territory to deliver ADSL2+ services to more residential customers. TDS Telecom is receiving partial funding for 42 of its 44 projects, including the one in Orchard Farm, which is the third ARRA broadband stimulus project accessible by residents and the first to be 100 percent complete. The company also has partially completed ARRA projects around Chatham, Mich., and Wind Lake, Wis., where it is providing services to a select number of homes. TDS said these two projects are expected to be completed by the end of 2013. For more:
- see the release Related articles:
TDS' Fiberville program lures subscribers to IPTV, FTTH
TDS Telecom Arizona broadband stimulus project gets underway
TDS Telecom broadband services charge up in Wisconsin
TDS Telecom begins new broadband stimulus projects in Kentucky, Mississippi
UPDATED: TDS nears completion of Chatham, Mich.-area broadband stimulus project Read more about: Tds Telecom
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Southern Telecom, the telecom subsidiary of power utility Southern Company, is leasing more dark fiber to help wireless backhaul specialist Tower Cloud increase network capacity in Florida and Georgia. Building on its previously announced 10G network upgrade in Atlanta, Tower Cloud will use Southern Telecom's fiber to provide DWDM-based inter-city connections between Atlanta, Macon, Ga., and Jacksonville, Fla. Tower Cloud said that completing this fiber expansion will give it a continuous fiber network from Atlanta to Jacksonville. Along this route, the additional fiber will be used to provide low-latency transport between large carrier hotels in Atlanta and Jacksonville and a wireless provider's point of presence (PoP) in Macon. Tower Cloud's agreement with Southern Telecom comes as the company continues to upgrade its network in various parts of Georgia, Alabama and Florida.
The service provider built a 77-mile fiber ring to serve Aiken, S.C., and expand into LaGrange, Ga., through a partnership fiber buildout with a local electric utility. It is also providing direct fiber connections to Fort Gordon in Augusta, Ga., and to Fort Benning in LaGrange.
In Alabama, Tower Cloud has built a new fiber ring in Dothan to serve the area west of the city and Fort Rucker, while beginning the process of upgrading to a 10G platform in Montgomery. In Florida, it is in the process of upgrading to a 10G platform and expanding its Orlando network to increase coverage and bring Mobile Service Centers (MSCs) onto to its fiber network. For more:
- see the release Related articles:
Tower Cloud ups Atlanta network to 10G
Tower Cloud brings fiber reach into South Georgia
Wireless backhaul to be a $9B market by 2016, says Dell'Oro
Tower Cloud gets $17M in new funding, expands its Georgia network presence Read more about: Wireless Backhaul
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A group of 14 vendors recently met for a second plugfest event at the University of New Hampshire-Interoperability Lab (UNH-IOL), where they conducted interoperability testing of the G.Vector aspects of VDSL2. Participating companies included Actiontec Electronics, Inc., ADTRAN (Nasdaq: ADTN), Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU), Broadcom, Calix (NYSE: CALX), EXFO, Ikanos, JDSU, Lantiq, NETGEAR, Pace, Realtek Semiconductor and Technicolor. Telebyte provided test and measurement equipment. Using the Broadband Forum's G.Vector plugfest test plan, initial results will be provided to Broadband Forum members in the next few weeks. This latest plugfest included a multi-vendor G.Vector test where many CPE and DSLAM vendors confirmed the interoperability of their implementations when operating in the same simulated cable binder. "This was an event focused on G.Vector where we were testing multiple lines inside binder groups at the same time with the cancelation engines running," said Lincoln Lavoie, senior engineer at the UNH-IOL, in an interview with FierceTelecom. "At this event we got up to testing eight CPEs at a time with the DSLAM vendors providing eight lines to the CPE vendors to be able to test cancelation." During the event, vendors tested retransmission parts of the standard to ensure a service provider won't lose video frames, for example. In addition, they tested how a line can shift its bit rate up and down as noise conditions change. While earlier plugfest events tested VDSL2 and G.Vector on their own, Lavoie said that "we're now starting to combine all of these features together that had been tested all along the way as the separate VDSL2 plugfest and now with G.Vector to get to that testing everything at once approach." UNH-IOL said it will hold a series of G.Vector interoperability events in autumn of 2013 at its Durham, N.H., facility, with others possibly taking place in 2014. For more:
- see the release
Related articles:
ADTRAN, Alcatel-Lucent, others participate in VDSL2 plugfest at Univ. of New Hampshire
Broadband Forum introduces TR-69 certification program
Broadband Forum holds VDSL2 G.Vector plugfest
UNH-IOL, OPEN Alliance target 100 Mbps Ethernet for cars
UNH-IOL's new home networking initiative focuses on pre-testing CPE for TR-69, IPv6 compliance Read more about: Vdsl2
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