July 2003
The ATS Network & Billing Update is published by Advanced Technologies & Services, Inc. (www.atso.com), a revenue and service assurance solutions provider. This free newsletter is an electronic monthly guide to telecommunications OSS, billing, and revenue assurance news and analysis, and is distributed by subscription only. To subscribe, click on the "Sign Up" link at left. To unsubscribe, contribute an article, or for offbeat news, please scroll to the end. Feel free to forward this newsletter!
In this issue:
Cincinnati Bell Completes Sale of Broadwing
Cincinnati Bell completed the divestiture of Broadwing Communications to C III Communications. Cincinnati Bell decided to sell of its Broadwing assets, which include the backbone network formerly owned by IXC Communications as well as the Broadwing brand name, in order to focus on its ILEC operations. The company received just $108.7 million for the broadband assets, and it will continue to work with Broadwing to provide broadband and long distance services to its customers in the greater Cincinnati area. C III Communications is a joint venture between Cequel III and Corvis. [Top of Page]
(Related Article: Fortune: The Telco That Came Full Circle)
Sprint Loses Challenge to Wireless Area Codes
The Federal Communications Commission can create area codes specifically for mobile telephones, a U.S. appeals court ruled Tuesday, rebuffing Sprint Corp.'s argument that such codes discriminated against wireless carriers.
The court in Washington upheld the FCC's decision to lift a ban on specialized area codes, saying Sprint's challenge was not valid because the agency had not yet authorized new cell-phone area codes under the guidelines.
Cox Communications, the fourth largest cable operator in the U.S., has begun to move its long distance voice traffic onto its national IP backbone. Cox is using Nortel Networks' Succession cable VoIP solution and Nuera Communications' media gateways. The companies confirmed that this is the first packet trunking deployment by a cable operator in North America. Cox currently has some 750,000 voice customers being served over Nortel Networks DMS circuit switches and is handling more than 24 million calls per day. Cox has now deployed Nortel Networks Succession Communication Server 2000 superclass softswitch and has begun to move long distance traffic onto its national IP backbone. Cox estimates this transition will save them millions of dollars in expenditures each year. Cox is also using Nuera's ORCA GX-21 and GX-8 VoIP media gateways. [Top of Page]
(Related Article: America's Network: Cox adopts VOIP at the core)
ATS President Joins Local Business to Help Fight Muscular Dystrophy
ATS President, Randall B. Guthrie has accepted an invitation to be ‘locked up’ on behalf of the Northern New Jersey Chapter of the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA). By participating in a charity “jail-n-bail,” Mr. Guthrie will help raise money to fight Muscular Dystrophy. [More] [Top of Page]
Thousands Flock to "Do Not Call" Registry
The
US federal government's do-not-call list began taking customer information
with overwhelming success. The Federal Trade Commission began allowing
customers to register for the list 6/27/03. Within 17 hours, the
Commission reported that 735,000 people signed up. At one point, more than
1000 people per second were trying to access the list's registration site.
The amount of traffic was so overwhelming at times that the site was
sluggish to respond or was not available at all. The Commission said it
expects as many as 60 million phone numbers to be entered into the
registry within the first year, and the list is expected to cut down on
the amount of telemarketing calls made every day by 80 percent.
[Top of Page]
OffBeat News: Who is Stronger: Terminator or Hulk?
True geeks
turn to physics, not box office for answer.
SMichael Moyer
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