Telecom Ramblings

There has been something of a large network M&A rumorfest in the markets this week, but in the background everyone else just kept on going with normal business.  And metro fiber had a pretty good week, especially considering the relative paucity of PRs this quarter with actual contract wins.

TW Telecom (TWTC: chart, news) announced an Ethernet-based voice and data network deal at the Kansas City Star covering 10 sites.  The key to winning the deal was, quite simply, their dense metro fiber network in the city.  This sort of deal is TW Telecom’s bread and butter.

In a similar vein, Level 3 Communications (LVLT: chart, news) won an contract expansion with First Commercial Bank of Florida.  The deal involves an upgrade to an IPVPN and includes primary and backup data storage.  Level 3 has extensive metro facilities in Florida, where they added the combined Telcove and Progress Telecom footprints a few years ago.  That their business markets group is seeing a bit of success in the region is good news.

RCN Metro, the metro fiber division of RCN (RCNI: chart, news), also picked up a new customer in the 92nd Street Y.  By bringing them on-net, RCN Metro’s high speed internet access will power the institution’s WiFi network.  And down in Florida, independent metro fiber specialist Fiberlight announced this week that it has pulled fiber into ColoHouse, a new Miami data center designed to withstand hurricanes.

And finally, Lexent has pulled fiber into Yankee Stadium for Atlantic Metro Communications.   The fiber will connect the facility to some 90 datacenters, and facilitate better distribution of all those live video streams to fans.

None of these are huge deals, but success is built out of many small and medium ones.