January 18, 2013

Products & Services...

— The enhanced Fibe TV On Demand store from Canada’s Bell now includes detailed movie reviews from the popular Rotten Tomatoes Web site, a first for on-demand video services, the operator notes. Other new features include a poster-style interface and a "My Videos" section that lets viewers add content to their wish lists for future screening while showing all current rentals in one location.

— CenturyLink Inc. plans to build a Technology Center of Excellence adjacent to its headquarters in Monroe, La. The center will include technology R&D labs, a network operations center, and office and meeting space; some 800 employees plus vendors with network and IT skills will be work out of the facility. The building is being designed to meet Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver certification requirements, and it could open in early 2015.
 
— Pulsecom will use Tail-f’s NCS software as the backbone of its planned NetPulse EMS service, a carrier-class Element Management System (EMS). Tail-f Systems provides multivendor configuration management and network automation software. Pulsecom says it chose Tail-f because of its advanced feature set necessary for Tier 1 carriers; its model-driven development approach will allow Pulsecom to add and modify customer management capabilities. In addition, northbound interfaces are standards-based for better integration with OSS/BSS platforms.