Xavier Melero and Luis Perez de Ayala are appointed equity partners

The Cuatrecasas Partners Assembly decided, in its meeting held on Friday, December 15, to open new offices in China and Morocco. The new offices, lo-cated in Shanghai and Casablanca, will begin to operate in the first quarter of 2007 and will form part of the firm's network of international offices.

December 13, 2006 - Telecom New Zealand has partnered with Yahoo!7 to form a joint venture, which will be called Yahoo! Xtra, and will provide an enhanced suite of online content and application services for New Zealanders.

Telecom Chief Executive Theresa Gattung said that Yahoo! is recognised as a global leader in online services and Xtra is the online market leader in New Zealand. 
The Yahoo! Xtra joint venture will provide New Zealanders with access to the world's best online services in a localised way, Ms Gattung said.

Announcement of ECTA Board Election 6 December 2006

At the Association's Annual General Meeting held in London on 6 December 2006, the following were elected to the Board of Directors to serve two year terms commencing from 1 January 2007 (in alphabetical order by surname):

• Richard Lalande, AFORS Telecom
• Fabio Macaluso, Fastweb SpA
• Raffaele Mosca, WIND
• Hubertus von Roenne, BT Global Services
• Craig Silliman, Verizon Business

The 16th Plenary Meeting of the EIDQ Association took place on 23-25 October 2006 in Stockholm, Sweden, kindly hosted by Eniro 118 118 AB.

During the meeting, Members gave their approval to new Articles which herald an evolutionary change to the scope and purpose of the Association. Changes were necessary to keep pace with the Industry and meet the needs of the membership which has grown by 60% in 3 years.

TELECOMS PROVIDERS URGE COMMISSIONER REDING TO ADOPT FUNCTIONAL SEPARATION

Brussels, 16 November 2006 - The European Competitive Telecommunications Association (ECTA) today, at its annual Regulatory Conference, called for the Commission to adopt functional separation as a cornerstone of the Review of the Communications Framework. CEOs from ECTA's leading member companies met with Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Information Society and Media and a keynote speaker at ECTA's Regulatory Conference, to outline the pro-competition organisation's position on this and other critical issues. 

Singapore  October 25, 2006 - VSNL International announced today that it is the first global Ethernet service provider to achieve Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) certification. The Iometrix test laboratory certified VSNL International's Dedicated Global Ethernet Service to be internationally compliant to the MEF 9 specification of the MEF, the pre-eminent industry organization dedicated to facilitating the adoption of Carrier Ethernet Services.

VSNL International's Dedicated Global Ethernet service was tested by Iometrix between New York, London, Tokyo and Mumbai and was certified as compliant to the MEF 9 certification after successful performance against 244 test cases.

London, 17 October 2006 - The cost of doing business for small firms in the UK has reached an all time high as overheads continue to rise, led by utility price hikes. Despite this, research carried out by YouGov[1]surveying over 650 small business managers on behalf of Internet phone company Vonage, indicates small business owner operators are still missing the opportunity to reduce these overheads and free up much needed cash flow.

Incredibly small, lightweight and portable telephone makes calls from any PC with high speed Internet access to any number anywhere in the world

London, 5 October, 2006 - Vonage UK, the pioneering Internet telephone company, today announced the UK launch of the Vonage V-Phone, the world's smallest phone and most portable telephone landline.

Packed in a multifunctional USB device, the Vonage V-Phone comes with the Vonage Talk software pre-loaded, so that customers do not need to install it on their PCs and there is no need to restart the computer to start making and receiving calls. As the phone has no battery, there is also no need to worry about charging it. It is that simple! The device's 250 MB flash drive also stores all user contacts and call records. It may not look like a traditional phone be it landline or mobile, but the V-Phone does what phones were designed to do provide global voice communications.

MADRID (Carrier Ethernet World Congress, Booth No. 1) Sept. 25, 2006  Cisco Systems® today announced it has made enhancements to its Internet Protocol Next-Generation Network (IP NGN) architecture to ease deployment of a wide range of business-focused and consumer-based services. The enhancements are designed to help increase service providers revenues and customer loyalty while making delivery of the services more cost-effective.

The Cisco IP NGN architecture now incorporates standards-based Carrier Ethernet operations, administration and management (OAM) capabilities from the core to the customer premise, and it includes the Cisco® 7600 Series Routers, Cisco Metro Ethernet (ME) 3400 Series Ethernet Access Switches, Cisco Catalyst® 3750 Metro Series Switches, and Cisco 1841, 2800 and 3800 Integrated Services Routers. The new OAM features also include IEEE 802.1ag for service verification, IEEE 802.3ah for link layer troubleshooting, and Ethernet link management interface (E-LMI) for auto provisioning of customer premise equipment.

Industry-leading multicast and QoS capabilities make world's fastest core routing platform a clear choice for digital video/IPTV and other advanced service delivery

LONDON, UK September 5, 2006 - Cisco Systems® today announced that BT has verified the functionality of the Cisco CRS-1, the core component of the Cisco IP Next-Generation Network (IP NGN) architecture and an optimal platform for scaling digital video and IPTV applications and enabling network convergence using Secure Virtualization.