END OF YEAR SALE OF IGI CONSULTING MARKET RESEARCH REPORTS, UP TO 50% DISCOUNT 1--- 20%, 2---25%, 3--- 30%, 4--- 35%, 5--- 40%, 6--- OR MORE 50% TOP STORY MegaFon invests above $150 million in its network in Siberian Federal District

NEW EVENTS ChinaTel Summit 2007 January 13-14, 2007 - Hilton Hawaiian Village - Honolulu, Hawaii Executive Telecom Briefing 2007 Telecommunication Policy and Regulation Issues for 2007 January 23   Boston, Mass. January 25   NYC, NY January 30   Washington, D.C. February 1    Richardson, Texas February 7    San Jose, California WIRELESS Svyazinvest will not consider its subsidiaries bidding for 3G Embratel to start pilot WiMax project in Jan Datang Mobile signs deal with BenQ to make 3G handsets Russia outlines terms for 3G licenses The Nokia-Potevio JV to start production by 2007 SK Telecom to slash rates of wireless data services for teenagers by 30% in 2007 BUSINESS STROM Telecom and Vodafone sign business solution deal MERGER & ACQUISITIONS SonaeCom's $14.6 billion takeover bid gets regulatory approval INTERNET ECI Telecom launches Carrier Ethernet line cards under its MSPP product range FINANCIAL AFK Sistema posts 5-% increase in Q3 earnings NEW REPORTS “Internet Growth 2006 - New Market Forecasts" "What are the Bandwidth Needs of the Access Network"

It's Budget Closing Time Again! It's hard to believe, but 2006 is almost gone. Don't lose those funds left in budgets - use them intelligently!! This Year Use Some of those Excess Funds in Departmental Budgets Wisely Buy Reports that Will Pay Dividends all Next Year! Information Gatekeepers Inc. Is Offering Discounts on all Multiple Report Purchases for the Next Three Months! Get the Latest Information • Most Important Current Subjects - • “FTTP - Still the Big News in 2006!” • “On the 'R-OADM' to the Lightwave Network” • “IPTV - The Telcos' New Light Sword” • “The Market After the Mergers” • “The Next Generation Network - Will the RBOCs Be Googled Up?” •How Much Bandwidth Is Enough in the Access Network? • “Internet Growth - 2006 - Traffic on the Internet” • Authoritative Material - All Part of the Highly Credible “Lightwave Series” • Best Prices of the Year! And - Just In Time for Budget Close-Out! Contact Us at 617-782-5033 or E-mail ppolishuk@igigroup.com NEW SERVICE FROM IGI CONSULTING Network Design Service Industrial Ethernet Cabling Systems Market $3,990 $4,740 PDF Data Center Cabling Systems Market $4,490 PDF VOIP Cabling Systems Market $2,990 PDF FREE DOWNLOAD Holliday's Holiday Horoscope - PowerPoint Version and “The Dancing Bells”

TOP STORY

MegaFon invests above $150 million in its network in Siberian Federal District
MegaFon has invested above $150 million in developing its network in the Siberian Federal District during 2003-2006, according to Mobicom-Novosibirsk. The subscriber base of MegaFon in the Siberian Federal District was reported to be 1.226 million as on December 1, 2006. Mobicom-Novosibirsk said that the number of base stations also went past 800 in December.
MegaFon introduced its services in four Siberian regions in 2006: the Taimyr Autonomous District, including the Norilsk industrial area; the Altai Region; the constituent republic of Khakasia; and the Omsk Region. MegaFon now operates in eight of the 11 regions in the Siberian Federal District and expects to expand its network to the remaining three regions in 2007. The company estimates a market share of 9% in the Siberian Federal District.



NEW EVENTS






ChinaTel Summit 2007 + VC Forum Hosted By IGI group
January 13-14, 2007 - Hilton Hawaiian Village - Honolulu, Hawaii

Dr. Hui Pan
Summit Chair
Chief Economist
IGI Group

Organized by Information Gatekeepers, in cooperation with the PTC, ChinaTel Summit & VC Forum 2007 will explore the market opportunities in wirelss communications and venture capital in China.

Home to the world's largest number of mobile subscribers, the Chinese market has been experiencing exponential growth in the last several years. The Chinese mobile operators are trialing out 3G technologies based on GSM, CDMA and TD-SCDMA.
With the issuing of 3G licenses expected by early next year, all leading equipment manufacturers are aggressively positioning themselves to compete in this market.
In addition to the opportunities in mobile and Internet infrastructure, new value-added services and business models are being sought after by Chinese consumers and carriers. Recognizing the great market potential, Western venture capital firms are leading the charge in financing new start-ups with innovative technologies.
Come and network with Chinese carriers, policy makers, equipment manufacturers, and venture capitalists. Learn what opportunities exist for your company in this dynamic market.
For more details, check the developing program at: www.chinatelecomconference.com/conference.htm

Executive Telecom Briefing 2007
Telecommunication Policy and Regulation Issues for 2007
These Briefings are directed at understanding how Telecommunication and Policy decisions in Washington, D.C.  will affect the Telecommunications market and should be of interest to:
Carriers
Regulatory lawyers
Investors
Venture Capitalists
Systems Suppliers
Subsystems and component suppliers
Consultants
For further information on the content, location and attendance information, contact IGI.at: www.igigroup.com, E-mail: info@igigroup.com, Phone: 617-782-5033, Fax: 617-782-5735



WIRELESS

Svyazinvest will not consider its subsidiaries bidding for 3G
Russia-based national telecom holding Svyazinvest said that it would not consider its subsidiaries' bidding concerning the tenders for licenses to deliver 3G mobile telecommunication services, according to Svyazinvest spokesman Oleg Mikhailov. Svyazinvest claims 51% voting stakes in seven regional fixed-line operators and long-distance operator Rostelecom, apart from stakes in various minor operators. The Federal Communications Agency (Rossvyaz) had announced tenders for three licenses for providing 3G mobile services, earlier. Russia's three main mobile operators, MTS, MegaFon and VimpleCom have announced their decision to participate in the bidding process.

Embratel to start pilot WiMax project in Jan
Brazil-based long distance carrier Embratel plans to initiate a pilot WiMax project in the town of Sao Paulo in January. The large-scale launch of WiMax is likely to take place in mid-2007, according to Embratel's executive director of technology and network quality, Ivan Campagnolli. The firm plans to obtain national coverage in all the cities having above 500,000 residents. Embratel is a part of the Mexico-based telecoms group Telmex.
Due to disputes concerning bidding rules, a new auction for obtaining WiMax license in the 3.5GHZ and 10 GHZ frequency bands has been suspended. Fixed-line operators like Telemar and Brasil Telecom have expressed their dissatisfaction over the bidding rules that prevent operators form getting WiMax licenses in their concession areas.

Datang Mobile signs deal with BenQ to make 3G handsets
Datang Mobile has signed a deal with BenQ for producing 3G handsets based on China-developed TD-SCDMA technology. The TD-SCDMA is a standard for 3G mobile communications. Datang Mobile will deliver the TD-SCDMA technology while BenQ will undertake the responsibility of building a handset production line. These 3G handsets, varying from low-end to high-end products, will be sold mainly within China. Chinese Ministry of Information Industry recently declared that the important technologies of TD-SCDMA successfully met the requirements for 3G services. The government is expected to issue 3G licenses in Q1 (first quarter) of 2007.

Russia outlines terms for 3G licenses
Russia has set the terms concerning bidding for 3G licenses. These terms include the need to pay a fee of around $50,000, convert frequencies and answer various questions, according to Vedomosti business daily. Only Russian firms are allowed to participate in the bid. Every applicant will need to answer questions (each question would get a score) about the regions where it is operating, how long it has been operating, the number of licenses it has, the time required to create a 3G network, and more. The company which bags the highest score would be declared as the winner who have to pay a fee of $49,070. There are three big mobile operators in Russia- Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), MegaFon and VimpleCom. Russia had allocated frequencies for the 3G standard in October, which was found to be adequate for three firms only.

The Nokia-Potevio JV to start production by 2007
China-based deal between Potevio and Nokia called China Putian Corp will start producing its 3G mobile telecom equipment in Q12007, notwithstanding the element of uncertainty that could be added by Siemens. Potevio and Nokia had signed the $115 million deal in October 2005 to create the 51-49 joint venture for jointly developing 3G mobile telecoms equipment. Although the joint venture was scheduled to start production in 2006, it was unable to proceed due to an ongoing bribery investigation ($566 million in suspicious payments) involving six present and former Siemens employees. Siemens and Nokia had initially decided to merge their network businesses to create a new firm called Nokia-Siemens Networks. The Nokia-Potevio joint venture to develop 3G mobile telecom equipment is base don the Europe-backed WCDMA standard and the China-developed TD-SCDMA standard.

SK Telecom to slash rates of wireless data services for teenagers by 30% in 2007
SK Telecom Co. has planned a 30% cut on the rates of wireless data services for teenagers from 2007 beginning, in a bid to discourage their excessive usage by teenagers. In 2007, SK Telecom will reduce its fixed monthly charge for cellphone data services from $28 to $19.291. LG Telecom Ltd. and KTF Co. are also likely to follow suit. Earlier in December 2006, the Ministry of Information and Communication declared that it will form new regulations in 2007 to dissuade teenagers from spending excessively on cellphone services.
Almost 40 million people of the 48 million South Korean population use a cellphone.



BUSINESS

STROM Telecom and Vodafone sign business solution deal
Czech firm STROM Telecom has agreed to deliver a billion solutions to cellular operator Vodafone in the Czech Republic for a period of three years, according to Russia-based firm Sitronics. STROM Telecom is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sitronics, a technology unit of Russian telecom company AFK Sistema. Although Sitronics did not reveal the value of this deal, the value is expected to amount to several millions euros. This integrated information system named FORIS BSS/OSS will enable operators provide (any combination of) tariff plans with special offers to its subscribers. It will also allow users to create their own tariff plans. The system is scheduled to be launched in June 2007.



MERGER & ACQUISITIONS

SonaeCom's $14.6 billion takeover bid gets regulatory approval
SonaeCom's $14.6 billion bid to acquire state-owned Portugal Telecom has obtained the regulatory approval from Portugal's competition authority. Shares of SonaeCom rose around 1% and closed at $6.81 whereas Portugal Telecom's shares declined almost 1% to close at $12.86. However, this decision came after the markets were closed. This decision is likely to pave way for restructuring the telecoms sector in the country. If SonaeCom buys PT, it would have to sell either its cable line or its fixed-line networks. The company has 10 days for registering its bid with Portugal's stock market regulator.



INTERNET

ECI Telecom launches Carrier Ethernet line cards under its MSPP product range
ECI Telecom launched a range of Carrier Ethernet line cards under its Multi-Service Provisioning Platform (MSPP) product range. With these cost-effective modules, operators can offer several carrier-class Ethernet applications and services, including Business VPNs, triple-play services, wholesale applications and wide-ranging solutions for mobile carriers. Several mobile operators have placed orders for the cards and they will be available in the market by 2007-beginning.
Operators can avail quality access to core Ethernet services from ECI's new carrier-class Ethernet capabilities. These new cards deploy carrier Ethernet services, which address Layer 1 via eventually MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching).



FINANCIAL

AFK Sistema posts 5-% increase in Q3 earnings
Russian telecom holding AFK Sistema has posted an increase of above 50% in its third quarter earnings. Sistema stated that its EBITDA increased 56% to $1.4 billion on account of the good performance of its asset, Mobile TeleSystems. Its revenue also went up by 39% to $2.9 billion from Q32005. President of AFK Sistema Alexander Goncharuk hinted about an imminent merger of Sistema's telecom business with a western or a Southeast Asian operator, as Russia intends to be a part of the World Trade Organization next year.



NEW PRODUCTS

EMCORE announces availability of QSFP devices for optical and copper media
EMCORE Corp. has made available, its family of Quad Small Form factor Pluggable (QSFP) devices for copper and fiber-optic media. This product family, QTR-3600(optical) and QTR-700 (copper) represents the next generation of parallel interconnections with greater port-density which provides designers with flexibility with current pluggable module infrastructures. The QTR-3600 and QTR-3700 devices enable high-density interconnections in various application environments like high-performance computing, telecom central offices, defense, enterprise data centers, etc. Devices are allowed to be arranged in stacked and ganged configurations to help manufacturers to increase the port-density by double, which in turn boosts system data throughput and reduces costs.
Editor's Note:  
Dr. Alan Benner of IBM Systems and Technology Group addressed some of the issues related to this story in his presentation on
"POF in Supercomputers and Servers"  at the just-concluded "POF World East 2006" conference organized by IGI.  Please visit www.pofworld.com for more details. 

Dust Network to expand its product family to include network-ready SoC products
Dust Networks will expand its product portfolio to include network-ready System-on-Chip (SoC) products. These SoC products combine very low-power radio technology with strong networking capacities with the Time Synchronized Mesh Protocol (TSMP) in a Mote-on-Chip (MoC), creating new benchmarks for power-cum performance regarding reliable wireless sensor networking. Compared to other available radios, Dust's MoC products consume 80% less power. This drastic reduction gives customers flexibility while designing battery-operated or power scavenging control devices. Dust's network-ready SoC products will increase the longevity of future WSN products using TSMP technology, apart from increasing the range of applications for these products.



IGI NEW SERVICES

"NEW" Network Design Service
IGI consulting(IGIC) has announced a joint venture with Amesbury Consulting to provide a new service which locates "Dark fiber" facilities in any city in the U.S. Amesbury Consulting has extensive experience in dealing with real estate developers, building owners, systems integrators, and government agencies in identifying and documenting "Dark Fiber Facilities" in a number of cities in the U.S. As a result of these projects over the past several years, Amesbury has developed a methodology which allows it to quickly and efficiently determine the location of "Dark Fiber" facilities in any city in the U.S. The service saves clients time and money in identifying a reliable source of this type of data in a particular city. IGI Consulting has a long history of high quality market analysis and technology forecasting in the fiber optics field. By combining the capabilities of both companies, clients can obtain high quality and reliable data on "dark Fiber" facilities to meet their needs.
For further information or quotes on a particular location, contact Paul Polishuk at 617 782-5033
email at: ppolishuk@igigroup.com or visit:: www.igigroup.com


NEW REPORTS

"Internet Growth 2006 - New Market Forecasts"
This report forecasts how much traffic will be carried for the period to the end of this decade, on the Internet backbone and on the total national North American. Given this statement of purpose for the report, it is interesting to note that there really is no Internet backbone or North American network, in the sense of an individual entity.
For further information and a complete table of contents visit our site, or contact:
Dr. Paul Polishuk, Information Gatekeepers Inc., 320 Washington Street, Suite 302, Boston, MA 02135. 617-782-5033, Fax 617-782-5735, ppolishuk@igigroup.com, or visit, http://www.igigroup.com/st/pages/growth06.html

" How Much Bandwidth is Enough In the Access Network?
Strategies of AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth in the Design of the Last Mile
When Bell shouted, “Watson, come here!” He probably wanted to debate the design of the 'last mile' of his planned telephone network. Ever since then, telephone engineers and executives have been debating the design of the last mile. The debate continues now with the various FTTX schemes for bringing fiber to within various distances of the customer. In some ways the debate really hasn't changed much - it is still about the economics of each approach - but in a very real way the debate is different now. In the past, this debate was always about POTS, and the economics of various way of providing it. Now it is still about economics, but it is also about - maybe even more so - alternative ways to meet requirements for some very exotic services.

The question is not just, “Which is cheaper?” But also involved are questions such as, “What services will I provide? “How many of each service will the customer need?” “How much bandwidth do I provide for these requirements?” “How will compression advances impact my choices?” The answers to these questions guide the technology choices for the last mile now, at least, as much as economics. This report addresses these issues in light of the activities of the largest telecommunication companies in the US - AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth. This report starts with a forecast for demand by end users for bandwidth, based on forecasting bandwidth demand of those end users (watching TV, using the Internet, etc.) It then proceeds to review the available designs to provide bandwidth to the access customer, and finally evaluates each provisioning technology against the demand. The results of this analysis are compared to the activities of the large telecom companies and changes in their strategies are forecast.

While this was never a simple debate, the addition of the new unknowns about service requirements makes it a much more complex consideration. To see how complex, one just needs to note that the three (soon to be two) major telcos - Verizon, AT&T and BellSouth - have studied this issue with all of their great resources and come up with three completely different answers!

For further information and a complete table of contents visit our site, or contact:
Dr. Paul Polishuk, Information Gatekeepers Inc., 320 Washington Street, Suite 302, Boston, MA 02135. 617-782-5033, Fax 617-782-5735, ppolishuk@igigroup.com, or visit, http://www.igigroup.com/st/pages/enough.html

UPDATED REPORTS

“FTTP - Still the Big News in 2006, AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth Plans - an Update.”

This 2006 incarnation of the FTTP Report will focus on the coming change to a new delivery mechanism based on GPONs. Verizon has just announced the successful vendors from its analysis of a GPON RFP, and the other RBOCs are watching closely. The other major change is the merger of AT&T and BellSouth. Shortly there will be only two major RBOCs - Verizon and AT&T.

This report will consider the issues of the background competitive landscape - especially now that the RBOCs have swallowed up the two largest IXCs (and CLECs) ; the details of the RBOC PON (and the coming GPONs); details of the various RBOC access architectures, and how video fits into these architectures; details of the various options for deploying video - FTTX, broadcast video and IPTV; the current deployment scenarios; an analysis of the economic impact (capital and on the overall network) of that deployment; the specific plans of each of the RBOCs; vendors of the equipment and software; and details of the video plans. This update will add the information on the selected vendors, as well as illustrating the impacts of the so-far identified deployment plans.

For further information and a complete table of contents visit our site, or contact:
Dr. Paul Polishuk, Information Gatekeepers Inc., 320 Washington Street, Suite 302, Boston, MA 02135. 617-782-5033, Fax 617-782-5735, ppolishuk@igigroup.com, or visit http://www.igigroup.com/st/pages/fttp.html


On the R-OADM to The Lightwave Network
Now in mid-2006, the R-OADM has become a standard part of long-haul networks – to be included as a matter of course in any new network, and they are rapidly becoming a major update objective for existing networks. For more informaton, visit:
http://www.igigroup.com/st/pages/roadms06.html

Unrepeatered Submarine Cable Fiber Optic Systems
Unrepeatered Submarine Fiber Optics Systems represent a new market opportunity for existing and new players in the market. The original transoceanic links required large investments in research, installation and OAM. As the technology has developed the capability of unrepeatered undersea fiber optic links continues to increase, opening up new markets where only the cable is placed underwater and the electronics are located in a benign environment on the shore. Unrepeatered systems also require less investment and lower cost for installation and OAM. Hence, many smaller players are now able to enter the market. For more information visit: www.igigroup.com/st/pages/unrepeat.html

"The Dancing Bells and GoogleMan":
IGI Consulting has added another animated feature of the report on "Next Generation Networks - Will the RBOCs be Googled Up?" To see this, go to www.igigroup.com/st/pages/ngn.html


To purchase advertising space on Today inTelecom, contact Jaime Perez at jaime@igigroup.com

FREE DOWNLOAD
"The Dancing Bells and GoogleMan":
IGI Consulting has added another animated feature of the report on "Next Generation Networks - Will the RBOCs be Googled Up?" To see this, go to www.igigroup.com/st/pages/ngn.html