The Broadband World Forum Europe opened on 09 October at the CNIT La Defense venue in Paris. Organised by the International Engineering Consortium (IEC) the event is expected to attract 6-7,000 visitors from 120 countries. A number of major vendors used to the show to unveil new products and services. Telecomredux is bringing its readers a selection of these announcements.

Pirelli Broadband Solutions launched its Light Wavelength Division Multiplexing (LWDM) platform which builds on the success of the Pirelli City8ä Coarse Wavelength Division Multiplexing (CWDM) platform by adding low-end Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) capability. This combination supports six CWDM wavelengths, each operating at 2.5Gbits/s, and 16 DWDM wavelengths, each operating at 2.5 or 10Gbits/s, for a total capacity of 175Gbits/s on a single platform. The DWDM channels support optical amplification, allowing links of up to 200km without the use of dispersion-compensation. LWDM is designed to support all access and metro applications up to the metro regional and will handle all the different types of clients and line interfaces - telecom and datacom - to meet the growing demand for premium services.

Allied Telesis announced the availability of a European POTS service module as it expands its' regional capabilities of iMAP (integrated Multiservice Access Platform) products; the iMG664 series residential gateways; and the state-of-the-art iMG910 series of small business gateways, both for converged business services. The POTS service module on the iMAP enables operators and service providers to lower their capital expenditure and operating expenses by delivering centralised and transparent telephony services based on VoIP technology, without the need to supply and manage VoIP CPE devices. This new product will enable forward-thinking operators to migrate their TDM access infrastructure to IP and entirely replace their legacy DLCs and MUXs for more intelligence delivered deeper in the access network and closer to the end customer. Furthermore, European competitive carriers exploiting Local Loop Unbundling with full metallic access option can now offer robust, highly available and hassle-free baseband telephony service in addition to high-speed Broadband and IPTV offerings. With such an offering, competitive operators become a fully integrated, true one-stop-shop for bundled IP Triple Play packages.

The iMG664 series from Allied Telesis are fully-featured broadband residential and small business gateways for converged IP Triple Play services. The platform supports telephony, video and high-speed Internet access over ADSL/ADSL2+. As a next-generation broadband customer premise equipment, it integrates support for POTS and ISDN services in a single device. At the same time, the iMG664 enables the migration of traditional TDM voice services (analogue or digital) to IP, and supports the delivery of new services such as IPTV. In addition, the product supports wireless LAN technology for the distribution of multimedia applications and services within the home or small home office (SoHo).

Allied Telesis' iMG910 series of small business gateways are designed for converged business services over IP Broadband infrastructure. This state-of-the-art customer premise equipment is a service termination device enabling the migration of voice and data services to a more cost-efficient IP solution, supporting both analogue and digital interfaces. With the iMG910 service providers can offer robust and feature-rich telephony and data connectivity services to business customers over broadband connections, resulting in competitive offerings as well as lower OPEX and CAPEX for the service providers.

Huawei Technologies unveiled its Terabit SmartAX FTTx solution at the Broadband World Forum Europe 2006. The solution supports GPON and VDSL2 to deliver more flexible services. Based on the 10GE architecture, this solution also supports smooth evolution from GE to 10GE platform. It features excellent scalability, robust IP features and serviceability to fulfill the future multi-services demands of ultra-high bandwidth, and substantially reduce OPEX for the operators.

Lucent Technologies introduced MiViewTV, an interactive multimedia delivery platform that enables service providers to offer personalised, next-generation IPTV services and new applications that can be delivered to subscribers anytime, on any device. MiViewTV is a comprehensive IPTV software suite that is tightly coupled with Lucent's industry-leading IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) to deliver sophisticated "blended" services - combining video, Web and telecom capabilities - that can be customised to address the needs of specific markets and personalised to match thepreferences of individual users.

Lucent also announced the expansion of its agreement with Telefónica de Espana to supply its most advanced Carrier Ethernet platform, the Lucent Ethernet Router 15800, to support subscriber and service growth for Telefónica's ‘Imagenio’ IPTV service - currently serving more than 300,000 customers in Spain - and to help support the introduction of its IPTV and "triple play" voice, data and video services in additional markets in the country.  The platforms have also been deployed in support of Telefónica's fast-growing eBA network, which provides a wide range of business services for enterprise customers.

Lucent and Simpler Networks, a telecommunications equipment and software manufacturer, announced a joint development agreement under which the two companies are developing a new automated cross connect platform to enable service providers to dramatically reduce the cost of initiating new services to their subscribers at the ‘last mile’. The Lucent Automated Cross Connect will help service providers dramatically reduce the cost of initiating new services - such as IPTV - for their subscribers.

Lucent has been selected by Maxis, the leading Malaysian mobile service provider, to deploy a next-generation, all-IP network to support ADSL broadband access services. Under the terms of the three-year contract, Lucent will provide Maxis with its AnyMedia Line Access Gateway (LAG). Lucent will replace existing Maxis legacy access systems (used to support traditional voice services) with Lucent's next generation AnyMedia LAG 1900 and 4300 systems, access gateways that support narrowband as well as broadband and leased line services in a single system. With Lucent's AnyMedia solution, Maxis will be able to offer ADSL services to both new and existing customers.

Bridgewater Systems unveiled plans to help service providers simplify network access control, enhance application authorisation, and enable dynamic management of broadband services. These benefits are extended in the company's next-generation subscriber-centric policy management technology and address the demand for enhanced service layer policy control in converged networks. The company's next generation technology will enable service providers to build a unified view of the subscriber, across any access network or application, regardless of whether the application resides within the service provider network or is hosted by a third party. This capability is important in converged network scenarios to resolve the challenges and costs associated with subscriber database and application silos - including a fragmented subscriber experience, inability to capitalise easily on application bundle opportunities, and increased management costs.

Bridgewater Systems and Operax are to collaborate for a unified approach to subscriber management and bandwidth control required for robust, scalable service creation and assurance capabilities in wireline broadband and converged networks. The two companies are in discussions with a number of broadband service providers in North America, Asia and Europe.