Heard on the Net

News about People and Companies Influencing The Broadband Home

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People News

Chris Busch has joined Incognito Software as VP of Broadband Technology. He was previously with Nortel Networks. ( www.incognito.com )

Gerard Delaney is joining Dilithium Networks as VP and general manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He was previously with BT Group PLC. ( www.dilithiumnetworks.com )

Michael Fowler has been appointed VP of solutions and Daniel West as VP of marketing at Nellymoser Inc. ( www.nellymoser.com )

David Hattey has been named president and chief executive at SIPquest. He was previously at 3Com. ( www.sipquest.com )

Sam Howe was promoted to chief marketing officer at Time Warner Cable. ( www.timewarnercable.com )

David Katz has joined Yahoo to oversee the sports and entertainment divisions. He was previously with the CBS Television Network. ( www.yahoo.com )

Sandra Swain Kilbridge has been named VP, business development at Rentrak Corporation. She was previously with Rainbow DBS/VOOM. ( www.rentrak.com )

Tom Rogers was named TiVo CEO and Jeff Klugman has been promoted to senior VP and general manager of its new Service Provider Division. ( www.tivo.com )

Allen P. Todd has joined Communication Technologies, Inc. (COMTek) as VP for BPL Operations. Todd previously was utilities director for the city of Manassas, Virginia, the site of a major BPL deployment. ( www.comtechnologies.com ) ( www.manassascity.org/ )

(Please email people@bb-home.com to report a change in your position.)

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Company News

Acquisitions

Amdocs, a provider of customer management software and services, has acquired DST Innovis for $238 million in cash. DST Innovis will operate within Amdocs as the Broadband Cable and Satellite division and will be headed by its current CEO, Peter Nault. ( www.amdocs.com ) ( www.dstinnovis.com )

Cisco agreed to acquire deep packet processing company NetSift for approximately $30 million. ( www.cisco.com ) ( www.netsift.com )

Ericsson has acquired Teleca OSS, a provider of systems integration for telecom management. The value of the deal was not disclosed. ( www.ericsson.com ) ( www.teleca.com )

Moseley Associates has agreed to acquire the assts of Wi-Fi and broadband wireless company Proxim for $21 million. ( www.moseleysb.com ) ( www.proxim.com )

TANDBERG announced the acquisition of Ivigo, a provider of mobile video solutions, for an undisclosed amount. ( www.tandberg.net ) ( www.ivigo.nl )

Telenor' completed its acquisition of Bredbandsbolaget (B2) in Sweden and Cybercity in Denmark for SEK 6.0 billion and DKK 1.4 billion respectively. ( www.telenor.com ) ( www.bredbandsbolaget.se ) ( www.cybercity.dk )

Funding

Current Communications Group, a leading broadband over power line (BPL) technology and service provider, announced a $100 million investment from Goldman, Sachs & Co., Google, and The Hearst Corporation, as well as two existing investors. ( www.currentgroup.com )

Meru Networks, a provider of VoIP mobility infrastructure, has secured $12 million in Series C funding. ( www.merunetworks.com )

Pannaway Technologies, designers and developers of converged broadband platforms, completed a $15.6 million E round of funding from private investors. ( www.pannaway.com )

PicoChip, a wireless silicon provider, secured $20.5 million in its third round of funding, including an investment from Intel Ventures. ( www.picochip.com )

sentitO Networks, a VoIP switching and services company for telecommunications service providers, has obtained $10 million in new funding. ( www.sentito.com )

Tatara Systems, developer of solutions for communications service providers, closed an additional funding round of $6 million. ( www.tatarasystems.com )

Xceive, a developer of RF-to-baseband receiver ICs for TVs and other consumer electronics devices, has raised $10.5 million in series B funding. ( www.xceive.com )

Other News

Artimi announced availability of its single chip Ultra Wideband (UWB) device. The RTMI-100 chip provides an 800Mbps capable UWB solution for applications such as bulk file/data transfer and streaming multimedia. ( www.artimi.com )

BT announced its anticipated Bluephone launch, now officially named Fusion. It will provide consumers with converged fixed/mobile service, starting in September. The BT Fusion acts as a mobile away from home and switches automatically to a BT Broadband line when the user is at home. The phone relies on a BT "home hub" which has Bluetooth wireless technology to switch the handset and also works as a Wi-Fi router. ( www.bt.com/btfusion )

Clickstar, a production company partly owned by actor Morgan Freeman, is forming a new venture, partly backed by Intel, to sell Internet movie downloads. ( www.clickstarinc.com )

The Beijing Times reported that Intel has signed a memorandum of understanding with Shanghai Media Group, a licensed Chinese operator of IPTV services, to cooperate on digital home programming. Intel announced it will also establish a US$200 million venture capital fund to invest in Chinese technology companies developing hardware, software and services. ( www.intel.com ) ( www.smg.sh.cn/english/ )

Metalink Ltd., a provider of broadband communications silicon, has introduced a wireless chipset targeting the IEEE 802.11n standard being developed for next-generation Wi-Fi. It added a highly-integrated baseband chip to its previously-available RF chip supporting MIMO antenna technology. ( www.metalinkbb.com )

Parla.it, a subsidiary of France Telecom, is offering residential VoDSL service in Italy. The service is based on a softswitch from NetCentrex with systems integration by Highdeal. ( www.parla.it )

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US Update

The Supreme Court ruled that high-speed Internet over cable is an "information service" not a "telecommunications service" and thus cable companies do not need to provide access to independent providers. Separately, the Supreme Court ruled in the Grokster case that peer-to-peer file-sharing companies can be held liable if they induce copyright infringement to support their business, e.g. through advertising. ( www.supremecourtus.gov )

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released new data on US high-speed connections to the Internet. Results showed that during 2004, high-speed lines serving residential, small and larger businesses, and other subscribers increased by 34%, to 37.9 million lines. ADSL lines increased by 45%, to 13.8 million lines and cable modem service increased by 30% to 21.4 million lines. 2.7 million high-speed connections were from other categories, including satellite or terrestrial wireless, fiber or powerline or wireline other than ADSL. ( www.fcc.gov )