Verizon Admits to Emergency Wiretapping

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In an Oct. 12 letter to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Verizon officials said they acted under the emergency provisions of FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act). The committee is seeking information about the country's telecom carriers' cooperation, including possible violations of U.S. privacy laws, given the Bush administration's admitted domestic wiretapping program.

AT&T, of San Antonio, Texas, and Qwest Communications, of Denver, also responded to the committee's request for information, but provided no details, pointing out that they are under a federal order to not disclose any information about their activities.

"The United States, through a sworn declaration from the director of national intelligence, has formally invoked the states secrets privilege to prevent AT&T from confirming or denying certain facts about alleged intelligence operations and activities that are central to your investigation," Wayne Watts, AT&T's general counsel, wrote to the committee.

Qwest officials wrote a similar response.

However, New York-based Verizon provided details that show the Bush administration's interest in obtaining customers' electronic communications.

"Verizon would receive a classified written notice that the attorney general has authorized the emergency surveillance, stating the time of such authorization," wrote Randal S. Milch, senior vice president of legal and external affairs at Verizon. "We would provide the assistance requested as expeditiously as possible. If we do not receive a FISA order to continue the surveillance within 72 hours of the attorney general's authorization, the surveillance would be terminated."

Verizon also noted that in 2005, it cooperated with more than 90,000 legal requests backed by subpoenas or court orders issued by local, state and federal government officials. In 2006, Verizon responded to about 88,000 such requests, and through the first nine months of 2007, it had cooperated with 61,000 requests.

Verizon, AT&T and Qwest all contend they acted legally in reliance on existing federal, state and local laws.

"Current law … provides a complete defense to any provider who in good faith relies on a statutory authorization," Verizon wrote. "If the government advises a private company that a disclosure is authorized by statute, a presumption of regularity attaches."

All three carriers are involved in what AT&T characterized as a "maelstrom" of litigation over the domestic spying program. The New York Times first broke the story of the administration's warrantless wiretapping and USA Today later added that the National Security Agency is using information provided by telephone carriers to data mine tens of millions of calling records.

AT&T and others asked about government access to records. Click here to read more.

AT&T said the issue of disclosing its alleged participation in the domestic spying program rests with the White House, which is also seeking immunity for carriers in the legislation before Congress.

"Our company essentially finds itself caught in the middle of an oversight dispute between the Congress and the executive branch relating to government surveillance activities," AT&T wrote.

"Applicable legal rules make clear that much of the information you seek is under control of the executive and that disputes of this kind need to be resolved through accommodation between the two political branches of the government."

House Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, said the carriers' response proved to him that the White House, "as the sponsor of this program and the party preventing the companies from defending themselves-is the entity best able to resolve the many outstanding issues. I look forward to meeting with representatives of the administration in short order, and I am hopeful that they will be forthcoming with the information Congress needs to properly evaluate this program."

Technorati : Verizon communication system

Broadcom unveils integrated 3G chip,

Broadcom Corp (BRCM.O: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Monday it had developed an integrated third-generation (3G) high-speed wireless cell phone chip ahead of bigger rivals Texas Instruments Inc (TXN.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Qualcomm Inc (QCOM.O: Quote, Profile, Research), sending Broadcom shares up as much as 3 percent.

Shares of Texas Instruments and Qualcomm both fell about 2 percent after Broadcom said it developed a single chip with a baseband -- the cell phone's main processor -- and a radio receiver as well as FM radio and Bluetooth, a short-range technology used for wirelessly linking handsets to headsets

Chipmaker Broadcom said Monday that it has developed a new processor that integrates all key 3G cellular and mobile technologies onto a single chip.

The processor that operates at extremely low powers will enable cell phone makers to build new 3G phones in more compact form factors with very long battery lives at a fraction of what it costs today, the company said.

The new 3G "Phone on a Chip" supports the four next-generation cellular technologies used throughout the world: HSUPA (High-Speed Uplink Packet Access), HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access), WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access), and EDGE (enhanced data for GSM evolution). It also can transmit and receive FM radio for playing music on a car stereo. And it supports Bluetooth technology and processing capability for a 5-megapixel camera.

Broadcom claims it is at least a year ahead of competitors, such as Texas Instruments and Qualcomm, in terms of integrating so much functionality into a single chip. The company also said the chip is already available to a select group of Broadcom customers.

In 2006, Broadcom had only about 1.4 percent of the cell phone chip market. By contrast, TI and Qualcomm each had about 20 percent of the 2006 mobile phone chip market, according to iSuppli.

The new chip could help boost Broadcom's market share against these competitors, especially in Asia where operators are rolling out faster networks much more quickly than they are here in the U.S. market. Broadcom has been aggressively trying to get a greater share of the cell phone market for the past few years. And as a result, the company has been embroiled in a series of legal fights with rival Qualcomm.

Broadcom won an important battle earlier this year, when the U.S. government banned Qualcomm and its partners from importing devices that use Qualcomm's 3G technology, because part of the technology has been found to infringe on patents held by Broadcom.

Technorati : Cellular chip

Microsoft developing (OCS)office communication server 2007

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Microsoft Corp. is looking for develop their office communication server

While most enterprise IT shops today still don't know what Unified Communications really is, information systems leaders at Global Crossing in 2005 had a pretty good idea of what it was and how the company could benefit from it.

ADVERTISEMENT On Oct. 16, Global Crossing IS leaders will participate in the launch of Microsoft's UC platform and demonstrate how their UC implementation via Office Communications Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 helped improve worker productivity by streamlining exception handling.

Microsoft Corp. is expanding its work with enterprise telephony vendors to make its Office Communication Server (OCS) 2007 work more closely with office phone systems.

On Tuesday, at the launch of OCS, the company plans to unveil a formal program to certify interoperability between IP (Internet Protocol) phone systems and OCS. As part of that, Microsoft will discuss a specification to let enterprises migrate one building at a time to its software-based unified communications system and still have calls go across the organization as if on the same PBX (private branch exchange). Two models of Cisco Systems Inc.'s popular ISR (Integrated Services Router) branch-office platform will be among the products certified for this type of interoperability, according to Zig Serafin, general manager of Microsoft's Unified Communications group.

Microsoft's initiative, called the OCS 2007 Open Interoperability Program, will formalize work that has already been going on with some third parties. As that work has expanded, it's reached a point where it needs to be more organized, Serafin said. The idea is to let customers know what will work with OCS, and Microsoft will provide a table on its Web site where potential customers can check the certifications of third-party products.

Although promoted as an effort to coexist with the IP (Internet Protocol) phone systems now established or taking root in enterprises, the program also will make it easier for customers to migrate away from dedicated communications systems and phones themselves, the company acknowledges. Voice call control is new to Microsoft's unified communications system with OCS 2007, but the software giant envisions a day when separate platforms such as Cisco's CallManager won't be needed, industry analysts say.

Cisco, Avaya Inc. and other vendors have already moved the voice call-control functions of traditional circuit-switched PBXes (private branch exchanges) into server software, but they sell that software along with IP handsets and other gear. Microsoft intends OCS, together with Office Communicator 2007 client software or special OCS phones made by Polycom Inc. and LG Electronics Inc., to ultimately replace those dedicated systems.

There are three methods of interoperability that will be certified under the program.

- SIP CSTA (Computer Supported Telephony Applications) is based on a standard by the European Communications Management Association (ECMA). It lets users control calls through the Office Communicator client on the PC, though in most cases still using the handset and PBX.

- OCS Coexistence lets the user pick up a call on either the existing handset or a client that uses OCS, namely Office Communicator or a special OCS phone.

- Direct SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) interoperability allows for some parts of an enterprise to use traditional or IP PBXes and others to use OCS, with transparent connections between them using gateways, according to Microsoft. SIP is the emerging standard protocol for exchanging information on voice, videoconferencing and other communications sessions.

Microsoft has already certified gateway products from five vendors for Direct SIP interoperability, Serafin said. Among them are Cisco's Integrated Services Router 2851 and 3845. In fact, all ISRs with voice capability can interoperate with OCS, according to Mike Wood, [cq] director of product marketing in Cisco's access routing group. Gateways from Dialogic Inc. also have already been certified.

As a newcomer to telephony, Microsoft will take time to displace many standalone telephony systems, so interoperability will be critical, analysts said.

Most enterprises that adopt OCS still have phones connected to PBXes and will dial through the PBX, said Brent Kelly, [cq] a senior analyst at Wainhouse Research LLC. To start, most OCS users will keep their PBXes in place and take advantage of CSTA to gain the click-to-call benefits of OCS, he said.

"Right now, OCS doesn't have a voice model that's good enough for the enterprise," Kelly said.

However, there are a number of barriers to interoperability, too, said IDC analyst Nora Freedman. While Direct SIP interoperability is a good idea, it will take a long time to really work because SIP is so new, she believes.

"We're still battling proprietary SIP extensions from all the notable vendors," Freedman said.

Meanwhile, CSTA could be a distraction for enterprises trying to make the transition to unified communications because it brings yet another standard into the picture, she said. And for now, it's hard for early adopters to get theses kinds of systems put together, she added.

"Now we have a wealth of product but a drought of system-integrator experience in this," Freedman said. Resellers are working feverishly to build up their expertise, she said.

Microsoft's plan for telephony is bold, looking to eventually eliminate OCS as a separate product and make it, and telephony itself, just a set of features in applications, believes Zeus Kerravala [cq] of Yankee Group Inc. But for the time being, the job at hand is making OCS work with existing phones, he said.

"The first phase is just to get it out there,"

Technorati : communication server