Telecom Ramblings

On Tuesday, pan-European service provider Interoute announced its expansion into Ireland with a new loop through Dublin.  The driver for the new PoP is demand from multinational corporations.  Ireland was once something of a technological backwater, but nowadays connectivity to the island is increasingly important and network operators have been pouring in.   

Interoute must be running short on new countries to extend their network to, in Europe anyway – 26 countries now and still adding more.  I do wonder when they will make the jump to another continent, or at least more of a jump than their minimal leased USA loop or their gateway facilities to Africa and the Middle East.  But there are a few more spots to reach yet – Athens, Istanbul, Kiev, Lisbon.

I am also quite curious to see Interoute’s numbers when they come out (probably March), to see how 2009 treated a pure European nextgen network. I expect it was a more difficult year than 2008 for the company, but how much more difficult?