Overseas Roundup 1/30: Rostelecom, ADVA, Orange, STM, Level 3

A few items from overseas to start the week:

Russia’s Rostelecom made an M&A move last week, gaining regulatory approval to purchase Siberian provider Enter.  Enter provides access to 22K subscribers in Bernaul, Novokuznetsk, and Tyumen, which for those too lazy to load wikipedia each have a half million or a bit more in population. Hmmm, buying fiber in Siberia in the winter – I’m thinking that’s probably the low season.

Adva Optical Networking (ETR:ADV, news) has teamed up with BT’s Openreach, unveiling a new optical service built on the FSP3000. Aimed at enterprises, the OSA service provides point-to-point fiber links throughout the UK at distances up to 103km, promising lower latency and higher encryption. I really ought to pay more attention to Openreach than I have; I will read up on it.

Orange Business (news) [a subsidiary of France Telecom (NYSE:FTE, news, filings)] and Consilium have launched a new maritime service. Current At Sea is a paperless navigation and communication solution, delivering and displaying charts and various applications needed by merchant vessels. Orange’s MPLS network, both terrestrial and satellite, power the service.  I doubt it would have helped in that mess off of Italy, but you never know.

While we’re on the satellite side of things, STM said today that Telenor Satellite Broadcasting has installed a new SatLink Hub that will provide services with two forward links from a new location in Cyprus.  That will allow the broadcaster to expand its coverage in the Middle East.  Activity seems to have picked up in IP via satellite over the past year or two.

And finally, the French hosting company Typhon is expanding its relationship with Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) to increase its global connectivity. Level 3 has been their primary transit provider in the US and Europe for the past three years, and will also be providing a dedicated transatlantic transport link as well as high speed IP services connecting their Paris locations. Next week we should hear some actual numbers reflecting the initial integration of Global Crossing and Level 3 – should be interesting to see how they choose to break everything down.

 

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Categories: ILECs, PTTs · Internet Backbones · satellite · Telecom Equipment