Tuesday Roundup: Level 3, Zayo, Padtec, UPN, Cisco

Here’s a quick look at some news from the past few days — new SDN-powered cloud connectivity, some refinancing, an alien wave, and two executive job appointments.

Level 3 is putting SDN technology to work. Yesterday they unveiled an Adaptive Network Control Solution for connectivity to Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform. Basically, that means instantly adjustable bandwidth and better analytics for customers using Level 3’s network to hook up to Azure. It’s an application of SDN that we arere starting to see a lot of, and are surely going to see a lot more of.

Zayo is doing a bit more refinancing work this month. On Friday they announced their intention to offer $350M of senior notes due 2025 while amending and restating their credit agreement. The details followed soon their after, pricing the senior notes at 6.375% and extending the $1.65B term loan facility to 2021 while shifting a few covenants around to align with the other senior notes they recently issued and add some flexibility.   Gee, I wonder why Zayo would want more flexibility…

Down south, the Florida Lambdarail has some new wavelength gear in place. They’ve completed the installation of the Brazilian vendor Padtec’s 100G Open Wave for Florida International University’s AMPATH project. They’ve brought in 100G transponders from Padtec as an alien wave without regeneration between Miami and Jacksonville. In the end, they’ll be doing this over a submarine cable link, taking an alien wave from Brazil under the Carribean and onto the FLR.

The midwestern fiber operator Unite Private Networks has itself a new President. They’ve promoted their own Jason Adkins to the post, moving him up from SVP of Sales & Marketing. Along with CEO Kevin Anderson, he’ll be helping with the company’s ongoing fiber expansion projects across a swath of territory from the cornfields of Iowa to Colorado’s Front Range.

And of course, the big executive turnover news yesterday was at Cisco. The long-serving John Chambers now has an heir and a retirement date. On July 26, Chuck Robbins will take the helm as CEO while Chambers will step back into the role of Executive Chairman. Robbins has been with Cisco for 18 years, and has been SVP of worldwide operations of late — so we’re not exactly talking about a course correction here, just a succession. I also rather doubt that Chambers’ voice is going to fade away just yet when it comes to broad industry trends and forecasts.  But it’s a big transition nonetheless.

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Categories: Cloud Computing · Financials · Jobs · Metro fiber · Telecom Equipment