Iliad Group nabs broadband funding

The Iliad Group has secured a loan of EUR 200 million from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to fund Iliad’s next round of fixed broadband network deployments. The EIB previously had loaned EUR 150 million loan to bankroll previous infrastructure roll outs. The EIB is the long-term lending institution of the European Union owned by its member states. It makes long-term finance available to support EU policy goals. Approximately 65% of the funds will be earmarked for the deployment of fiber to the home (FTTH). Much of the rest will go toward enhancing the carrier’s ADSL2+ network and promote unbundling. This next phase of construction will focus on less densely populated areas of the country under a cofinancing agreement signed with the incumbent operator in July 2011 designed to reach around 60 towns and villages. Said EIB Vice-President Philippe de Fontaine Vive, “Innovation and support for advanced information technologies are one of the EIB’s top priorities. Our goal is to foster the development of a competitive European economy based on the knowledge triangle of education, research, and innovation. We are therefore delighted by this partnership with Iliad, a key player in the digital revolution in France. The inhabitants of small towns and villages will benefit in particular from this operation.” “We welcome this partnership with the EIB, which will enable the Iliad Group to press ahead with the rollout of the digital fixed networks of tomorrow and strengthen its key position in France’s telecom’s sector,” added Xavier Niel, founder of the Iliad/Free Group.

Zayo adds 400G to Spokane to Portland route

Zayo Group says that it has increased the capacity of its fiber route from Spokane to Portland by 400 Gbps.

The network services provider asserts the extra capacity on the low-latency router will improve its ability to serve the needs of major carriers, industries, and businesses in the region. The upgrades necessitated installation of new equipment and replacement of some existing systems.

In addition to direct connections, the route also will offer an alternative path to the zColo facility at 2001 6th Avenue in Seattle, from Spokane and Portland.

"The Spokane to Portland route serves as a differentiator for Zayo's wavelength service," says Zach Nebergall of Zayo's Wavelength Product Group. "It provides diversity from other Spokane to Seattle routes, and gives Zayo the ability to serve more customers in the Spokane, Portland and Seattle metro markets."

Allot Completes Oversi Acquisition

HOD HASHARON, Israel -- Allot Communications Ltd. (NASDAQ: ALLT), a leading global provider of service optimization and revenue generation solutions for fixed and mobile data networks, today announced it has completed its acquisition of Oversi Networks. Oversi is a global provider of rich-media caching and content delivery solutions for Internet video and peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic. The agreement was announced on July 31, 2012. The Oversi Networks acquisition further enhances Allot’s vision to integrate the widest range of critical value-added services in its industry-leading Allot Service Gateway. Allot now enables operators to implement comprehensive video strategies by integrating caching with a portfolio of video services including video optimization, analytics and tight integration with both policy and charging. The Allot Service Gateway enables wireless and wireline service providers worldwide to quickly and efficiently drive new revenue sources and to effectively manage the ever-increasing volume of video traffic on their networks. Oversi's innovative caching and acceleration solutions help both fixed and mobile service providers to relieve the heavy network congestion associated with Internet video traffic. Its technology identifies popular content and caches it at the edge of the network, therefore achieving significant bandwidth saving and minimizing long delays in Video delivery and enabling the operator to better monetize the flood of video. The end result is a dramatic improvement in the subscribers’ quality of experience (QoE) for video applications. Oversi's solution has been widely deployed at several large and medium service providers to date.