Three interesting international network deals worth a quick look:
India-based Tata Communications and Hong Kong-based PCCW Global have interconnected their networks via an NNI. The two companies are collaborating to exchange both IPX and MPLS traffic in and effort to expand their high definition video conferencing reach. The two were already exchanging voice over IPX since last year, and this expands the relationship. It’s a natural way for both companies to reach into geographies and customer sets that they would otherwise have trouble approaching directly given the historical rivalry between the Chinese and Indian business worlds.
Liquid Telecom is starting to extend its reach beyond Africa. The nascent Pan-African fiber backbone has picked Japan’s NTT Communications for IP transit services. All the new submarine connectivity to Africa has helped stimulate demand, which is now growing at a greater-than-50% annual clip albeit from a low base. Liquid Telecom’s terrestrial fiber expansion has taken it deeper into Rwanda lately. For its part, NTT’s IP backbone is one of the world’s largest but Africa isn’t territory it has dabbled in too frequently.
GTT is upgrading its European capacity with some help from the Belgian-based network operator BICS. BICS operates some 9,000 route kilometers of fiber in western Europe, including connectivity to the Marseilles landing stations where EIG and SEA-ME-WE-4 come ashore. The upgrade will give GTT more raw European capacity to supplement its IP and Ethernet backbone, including that of the 100GbE variety. GTT recently moved to purchase UNSi in the US, but I wonder if they might show up in European consolidation at some point too.
And Pacnet has turned to BTI Systems to upgrade its metro networks for better cloud connectivity. They’re deploying the Canadian vendor’s gear in their Hong Kong and Tokyo data centers, giving them 200G per slot now and expansion room to 400G and 1Tb down the road. Pacnet’s business model has shifted toward cloud networking and data centers in recent years, and this is just one more step along that path.
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Categories: Ethernet · Internet Backbones · Telecom Equipment · telepresence
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GTT is (after HE) another important new client for capacity services from BICS.
But the question is: Do they only buy capacity from BICS on their DWDM-core routes (see the european network maps on http://www.bics.com)? Or does BICS expand its own network for selling capacity on new routes?
For example GTT has POPs in Hamburg, Berlin and Munich – but BICS is not present in these cities. GTT also has POPs in Vienna, Bratislava, Warsaw, etc. – but BICS only has SDH bandwidth there (and no “own” fiber).
So I suppose that BICS will only be one of several suppliers for GTT and HE.