News in Brief

AT&T Latin America signs pact with Nortel

NEW YORK: AT&T Latin America Corp. signed a three-year commitment to buy

fiber optic products and services from Canadian telecommunications giant Nortel

Networks Corp. that will help it strengthen its operations in the region.

AT&T Latin America is majority owned by US long-distance telephone and cable

television giant AT&T Corp. This agreement is part of a $300 million in

commitments that AT&T Latin America obtained last week from Nortel, Lucent

Technologies Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc, an AT&T spokeswoman said. In

exchange for those commitments from the world's top technology providers,

AT&T Latin America committed to make equipment purchases from the three

vendors in proportion to their respective financing commitments. However, the

terms were not disclosed. - Reuters

Level 3 to cut six per cent of work force

NEW YORK: Level 3 Communications Inc., which provides high-speed

communications services to businesses, said on Tuesday that it will cut about

325 employees, or six per cent of its work force. The Denver-based firm said its

total employment may grow during the year, but hiring will be focused in sales,

provisioning and network operations. Additional details were not immediately

available. Level 3 last month said it expected communications revenues of $1.7

billion and communications cash revenues of $2.4 billion to 2.6 billion for the

full year 2001. - Reuters

National semiconductor invests in technology

MUMBAI: National Semiconductor Corporation has announced a new family of

high-speed LMH operational amplifiers that are designed for use in

communications applications such as xDSL, set-top boxes and other consumer

applications.  The first eight products in the LMH series are based on

a cutting-edge manufacturing process, known as VIP10 that National Semiconductor

has developed to produce high-speed amplifiers. "The eight products we are

introducing for the communications market are the first offerings from

the LMH family. The benefits of VIP10 will allow National to move into

optical storage and video markets, further increasing our presence in the

lucrative operational amplifier arena," said National Semiconductor vice

president Suneil Parulekar. - CNS

Tata Cellular achieves total connectivity in AP

HYDERABAD: Tata Cellular, AP’s cellular service provider has launched its

service in Srikakulam, thereby connecting all 23-district headquarters, in the

state. With this, Tata Cellular’s service extends to 48 towns in Andhra

Pradesh. "This is a part of our total coverage plan, which envisages

covering all important towns across the state and in coming weeks we are going

to connect around 65 towns in all," said, Tata Cellular chief operating

officer, S K Subramanian. The company is also in the process of forming an

alliance with Birla and AT&T across the country, which would increase its

presence to as many as six states. "We are putting our efforts to form

Birla, Tata, AT&T to envisage our goal of becoming a major industry player

in the near future. With this we are going to have a presence in Chattisgarh,

MP, Goa, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh," he said. - CNS

FirePond to cut 20% workforce

NEW YORK: E-business sales and marketing software maker FirePond Inc. on

Tuesday said it was cutting about 650 jobs, or about 20 percent of its work

force, due to the slowdown in information technology spending. The Mass.-based

firm said it would take a restructuring charge in its second quarter related to

the job cuts and its recent acquisition of Brightware. Although the job cuts

will affect all departments, FirePond said about 40 per cent of the reductions

will come from its contracted offshore development organization. - Reuters