French network equipment manufacturer Alcatel-Lucent has announced it is to cut its work-force by 10,000 – around 15 per cent of the total – in an effort to cut costs.
All geographic areas where Alcatel-Lucent operates will be affected, with the reduction of 4,100 positions in Europe, Middle East and Africa, 3,800 in the Asia-Pacific region, and 2,100 in the Americas. By the end of 2015, Alcatel-Lucent aims to halve the number of its business hubs globally.
M2fx, the inventors and producers of the Miniflex range of fibre cables, have announced a partnership with Middle East Fiber Cable Manufacturing (MEFC), to support its growth in the Middle East.
MEFC will provide customers in the region with m2fx’s full product range. It has already supplied more than 500 FTTP installations of Miniflex cable for use in major projects across the region, including external and internal deployments for the Saudi Arabian carrier company Mobily.
Transmode has supplied the Slovenian company Telemach with a high-capacity optical network running from the capital Ljubljana to the country's second city, Maribor, and to Vienna in Austria. The network is intended to significantly reduce operating costs and long-term overheads.
A date has been set to start work on a new communications cable linking Africa to South America for the first time.
According to Angola Cables, more than 6,000km of optical fibre cables will be laid between the Angolan coast and the Brazilian city of Fortaleza, during the Cape2Rio2014 regatta – into which the Angola Cables company has entered a team – being held between the 4 January and 4 February 2014.
The company says the cable will be 6,165km long, and is expected to be operational some time in 2015.
Researchers in Hong Kong have successfully tested an optical sensor system that monitors the tracks and warns train operators of potential problems.
A string of fibre-optic sensors running along a 36-km stretch of high-speed commuter railroad lines connecting Hong Kong to mainland China has taken more than 10 million measurements over the past few years to demonstrate that the system can help safeguard trains against accidents.
The FTTH Council Europe has demanded more transparency and honesty from broadband companies following a news release relating to the roll-out of a vectoring solution.
HP says it has unveiled what it describes as the industry’s first enterprise-class software-defined networking (SDN) open ecosystem with the HP SDN Developer Kit (SDK) and the HP SDN App Store, creating new business opportunities for partners, and providing a simple way for customers to purchase and deploy network services.
Deutsche Telekom says it has proved the viability of multi-vendor interoperability on a 100Gbit/s long-haul dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) link, as part of its TeraStream pilot network at Hrvatski Telekom in Croatia.
The link was implemented using a common standard for the optical line side which was jointly developed by Deutsche Telekom, Cisco Systems, Alcatel-Lucent (Alu) and Cortina Systems.
OFC 2014, the leading conference for optical communications and networking professionals, has announced its line-up of keynote speakers for its plenary session.
For the first time since 1998, OFC will take place near Silicon Valley, at San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center, from 9 to 13 March.
Nominations are being sought for the FTTH Council Europe Award, which recognises outstanding support for the acceleration of fibre to the home in Europe. The winners of the award will be presented in a plenary session at the FTTH Conference 2014 in Stockholm on 20 February 2014.
CityFibre, the UK’s largest independent fibre optic infrastructure provider to secondary cities, has appointed Peter Manning as its chairman.
Manning, who is also chairman of Marston Group and formerly CEO of Colt Telecom, will join CityFibre’s board immediately to support CEO, Greg Mesch, in taking the fibre infrastructure provider through what it expects to be a period of strong growth.
iiNet has issued a letter of intent to submarine cable group Hawaiki, confirming its plans to acquire fibre capacity on the Australia-US segment of the Hawaiki submarine cable system.
The 14,000 km cable system, scheduled for completion in late 2015, will link Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii to the US west coast.
The deal will see iiNet acquire fibre capacity on the Sydney-to-US cable leg and the trans-Tasman leg linking Sydney to Whangarei in Northland, New Zealand. The cable will initially provide up to 3Tbps capacity using 100Gbps wavelength technology.
Virgin Media O2 has been laying the groundwork for full network automation in the future (credit: Virgin Media O2)
New tools and processes do more of the heavy lifting in managing networks to deliver seamless connectivity, but suppliers are still seeking the Holy Grail of full automation, finds Benjamin Skuse
The world is poised for 10-gigabit networks, and advances in DOCSIS 4.0 solutions could bring us closer to this reality, finds Alice Jensen
Blue Planet Studio/Shutterstock.com
A look at the market for optical transport equipment, including the vendors of some of the latest hardware products and solutions.
Abigail Williams looks at how European network developers are overcoming the challenges they face in expanding fibre deployments
Charlie Cassie highlights the latest recruitment trends that fibre network providers, owners and operators need to think about if they are looking to hire great telecoms talent
Colin Yates highlights the benefits of digital data capture for telecoms engineers, installers and other field-based professionals
