Cisco Tops Estimates
Cisco Systems' stock price climbed after hours on Tuesday on better than expected results. (more)

More Than 60 Courting Global Crossing
The ailing carrier says more than 60 potential investors have expressed interest in the company as its cost cutting measures continue. (more)

10 Gigabit Ethernet Is Here
Silicon Valley giants Cisco, Sun, Intel, 3Com and Extreme Networks among those proclaiming faster networking speeds at this week's NetWorld+Interop show. (more)

Liberty Media Shifts iTV to High Gear
John Malone's Liberty Media snaps up shares of OpenTV, looks to acquire ACTV and hits high gear with a broadband iTV strategy. (more)

OnFiber Buys Sphera Assets
Optical metropolitan connectivity provider OnFiber Communications Inc. said it has acquired network assets and customer contracts of Sphera Optical Networks Inc. for approximately $2.3 million as part of Sphera's reorganization filing under Chapter 11. The acquisition will give OnFiber access to four new metropolitan markets, an expanded customer base, and more than $400,000 of additional monthly revenue. With this acquisition, OnFiber will extend its network reach to ten markets: Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, San Jose, Seattle and Washington, D.C. Because of the companies' synergies, the integration of the Sphera assets into OnFiber's network will be seamless and will enable OnFiber to expand within the new markets immediately, officials said.

Metromedia Opens Washington, D.C. Subsidiary
Urban fiber-optic network builder aims to supply government with high-speed bandwidth. (more)

Venture Capital News

Movaz Gains $60M in Funding
Optical-networking solution provider Movaz Networks said it has closed on $60 million in funding that consisted of Series C financing and a strategic business agreement. Eight existing and new investment firms participated in the financing, including Oak Investment Partners, Worldview Technology Partners, Menlo Ventures, Meritech Capital Partners, Anschutz Investment Company, Telus Ventures, Silicon Valley BancVentures, Inc. and GATX Ventures Inc. VentureWire reported that $50 million of the $60 million came in the form of VC, while the other $10 million came from undisclosed investors in the strategic business agreement.

Product News

Agilent Rolls out Optical Test Products
Agilent Technologies Inc. (Quote) has introduced new and enhanced optical test products for metro networks that will help network equipment manufacturers (NEMs) reduce costs while meeting the complex test challenges involved in designing and manufacturing the latest generation of metro devices.

Agilent's new and enhanced metro products include:

• The new Agilent OmniBER XM network simulator, which enables service verification testing for transport devices under real-life network traffic conditions
• The enhanced Agilent OmniBER OTN communications performance analyzer, the industry's first product that provides Gigabit Ethernet over SONET/SDH via generic framing procedure (GFP) and high-accuracy OTU-2 jitter testing up to 10.71 Gb/s.
• The improved Agilent RouterTester 900, the industry's most scalable system for validating the performance and flexibility of metro/edge routers.
• A multi-port, multi-rate Ethernet test option for Agilent's market-leading Transmission Test Set that makes it a fully integrated solution for metro and core networks.

SMC Networks Intros Gigabit Over Ethernet Switch
Network-products provider SMC Networks announced the launch of the TigerSwitch 10/100/1000 (SMC8624T), a high-performance, feature-rich 24-port Layer 2 Gigabit Ethernet managed switch. The TigerSwitch 10/100/1000, a non-blocking 1U high switch supports 24 10/100/1000 GbE CU, including 4 combo ports with associated mini-GBIC slots. With an aggregated bandwidth of up to 48Gbps, MC8624T provides users with a high-performance, easy-to-manage switching solution with the integration of switching, QoS, management, and security feature sets.

This TigerSwitch is designed to provide a high-density pure gigabit solution in a small footprint to meet the requirements of today's most demanding network applications," company officials said.

Gigabit Network Optimization Box
Expand Networks announces the ACCELERATOR 6800, the company's first network optimization appliance that supports Gigabit Ethernet. (more)

Other News

Telseon Intros New Metro Wavelength Services
Metropolitan optical networking provider Telseon has introduced additional Metro Wavelength Services designed to give customers more choices to manage their metro bandwidth costs. The new services lower carrier and service provider costs with greater network control to tightly align bandwidth commitments to fluctuating business requirements.

Telseon Metro Wavelength Services offer high-capacity point-to-point protocol independent services between high-bandwidth network aggregation locations such as data centers, carrier hotels and colocation facilities in 20 U.S. metros. The combination of fast provisioning and lower costs compared to legacy private line services are driving demand for metro wavelengths services.