* Also: Forum certifies first Carrier Ethernet systems; router vendors address service quality, security, IP video
Sprint Nextel Wednesday announced that it expects telecommunications restoration efforts in the Gulf Region to cost $150 million to $200 million through the rest of the year. The company says that the estimate includes capital and operating expenses associated with the restoration of network infrastructure, retail stores and billing relief for customers that were affected by Hurricane Katrina. BellSouth announced last week that telecommunications restoration following the devastating hurricane could cost the local telco $600 million.
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The Metro Ethernet Forum this week certified its first group of vendor products as conformant with the organization’s “Carrier Ethernet” specifications. Thirty-nine products from 16 vendors passed the certification process, which was conducted by Iometrix, a tester of enterprise and WAN technologies and an MEF member. MEF began its certification process in April. The program is intended to facilitate consistency among worldwide carrier Ethernet services.
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Three router vendors have unveiled new and enhanced products to improve service quality, security and video capability. Alcatel shipped new operating system software for its 7750 Service Router (SR) and the 5620 Service Aware Manager. Release 3.0 of SR_OS features improved service continuity, richness and assurance for IP-based business applications, Alcatel says. Juniper rolled out a VPN appliance for service providers designed to enable them to turn up managed, network-based SSL VPN services. And Cisco has added features to two router lines to better enable video transmission over IP networks.
