Tuesday Bytes: CenturyLink, Infomart, VIRTUS, Level 3, Tata

February 9th, 2016 by · 13 Comments

Here’s a quick rundown on some recent items that are worth a look:

CenturyLink expanded its metro reach in a market outside its ILEC footprint this week. They have lit metro fiber in Houston, Texas, taking aim at the business marketplace there. With 1Gbps available in select multi-tenant office buildings, they hope to make a bigger dent in the midmarket. The effort is part of a broader network expansion announced last year, although it’s been a while since we’ve heard much from the former Quest backbone and its on/off ramps.

On the west coast, Infomart Data Centers has found some new success in the Portland metro area.  A tenant at its Hillsboro facility has leased 25,000 square feet of commercial office space and will add some 125 IT staff.  Infomart is in the middle of a 16MW and 100K square foot expansion in Hillsboro that will end this summer.

Over in the UK, VIRTUS Data Centres has added some key interconnectivity. Their LONDON2 facility in Hayes is now a transmission PoP for the London Internet Exchange, allowing their colo customers a wider range of direct peering options. VIRTUS’s LONDON1 facility in Enfield has been on LINX since 2014 of course.

With Denver shutting down Carolina in the Super Bowl over the weekend, folks in the world of bandwidth may have missed the annual tradition of Level 3’s Vyvx announcing it’s carriage of the event. Never fear, the company did the same underlying things it has done for the Super Bowl for most of the last three decades, helping acquire, encode, and transport more than 1,400 hours of video content. The company just didn’t get to put out an actual PR this time.

And also in the world of sports, Tata Communications picked up another significant international contract. They are the official broadcast partner for a three match series pitting clubs from Europe, Africa, and New Zealand against one another. Two of the matches took place over the weekend, while the last will be on Thursday this week. Tata is distributing the video feeds in HD from both Hong Kong and France.

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Categories: Content Distribution · Datacenter · Interconnection · Metro fiber · Video

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13 Comments So Far


  • Grant Lewis says:

    Rob have you heard about more layoffs this week or last week friday at Earthlink? I am hearing that their SVP of Sales Shawn Murray was let go along with the VP of Marketing Alex Gobbi. I am also hearing that they’ve reshuffled management roles and now their Product team leader Rick is now running sales ops? Anyone else hearing about these changes? Are they prepping for a sale?

  • Ex-ELNK-er says:

    i can confirm Shawn and Alex are both gone. One correction was Shawn was a VP not SVP so not sure if he was demoted along the way. Alex was a SVP but really only performed like a mgr in the company. Shawn had a good following from his team so it will be interesting to see the fallout. Alex was not liked at all and likely let go due to her lack of personality.

  • Rolla Huff says:

    Yes, Shawn was a SVP with regional VPs reporting up to him. He was let go because of the leadership change with Rick taking over the Sales Channel. Not sure where this puts the future of Gerard now that Rick has taken over but I am certain more leadership changes will be coming once Rick has decided who to move forward with and who to replace. He would be best served to move quickly and deliver more accountability.

    • Not so fast says:

      Shawn was originally promoted to SVP. But he lost his stripes and was demoted to VP back in late 2015. Rick, Gerard and Joe are a$$ clowns. They couldn’t fly a plane if it were on auto-pilot. I’m just waiting for this thing to implode or explode when it hits the ground. BTW, if you want to remove fat (sorry shawn boy) why don’t you look at Brad? or perhaps the totally inept technology org? Also whats up with a CTO who has zero people reporting to him? You need him? or just keeping him on for the sake of it? I suspect Joe’s got more changes coming before the pig is slaughtered …. grab your buttered popcorn and take a seat the movies about to begin. Its called Enron- the real story behind a leadership team in it for padding their pockets.

  • Ray Finkel says:

    Sounds like some people from the inside have a better perspective on the company. From the channel perspective we have been told that everything is status quo. We will continue to sell and support the same products. I would expect Synoptek to stream line thing alot more than they have been. From what I have read between the lines on our calls I would expect some shake up prior or post call on 2/17. They have until Q3 to right the ship or there will be a fire sale of all of their assets. A quick look at both Glassdoor and Linkedin show that they are bleeding talent right now especially to frontier in their Rochester market. Something is clearly wrong or isn’t working, the 5 support people I had on direct dial are “no longer with the company.”

    Next week I would expect them to announce a .05/share dividend again. An announcement that they are again “restructuring their business plan to fit the market”. Based on last weeks past sale they are still shopping the assets to private equity or maybe partnering with something to take them private.

    • Bill Billborough says:

      Worst kept secret in the market … ELNK is shopping itself around as much as it can. Who would want to buy it ? its a company rapped with B/OSS integration issues. Really a shame since if you could have resolved those you might be seeing a different business. Good sales people who didn’t want to take a beating from their customers over 180 days to deliver a T1 left. They took all their good customers. ELNK is a joke … and for the record in the channel things are status quo? Thats a funny statement …. two or three years ago the partner channel sold more $$ in MRR / month than all other teams combined. After they screwed up that channel they saw sub 100k months in new sales from highs of 500k to 700k per month. So if status quo is being less than average then you’ve summed up the leadership teams performance nicelly …..

      BTW, where the bleep is the BOD in this ? How can they see this company be so screwed up ? unless of course selling the individual BU’s individually is what they’ve agreed to !

  • fellow ELNK-er says:

    Obviously that isn’t Bill Billborough but whoever that person is is correct. ELNK under Rolla had a vision, and they were on their way. If you can blame Rolla for anything you can say he didn’t change the old guard fast enough by eliminating obstacles. That aside, he in now way screwed up this business as badly as Joe. What a joke.

  • Anonymous says:

    I can’t wait for this to become the next XO layoffs whining thread.

  • Anonymous says:

    You are not kidding. There are several people in a leaudership role that were former XO. They will also sink this ship and end move on to the next company to ruin.

  • Anonymous says:

    Layoff’s announced yesterday prior to 2015 Earnings. Sounds like the fire sale is happening sooner than later. Upto a 10% workforce reduction company wide. This is AFTER they have already divested the ITS business. I am not sure what will be left for sale on this skeleton of a company. Sharpen up those resumes Earthlinkers, it’s going to be a rough ride before the sale.

    Based on the previous poll Rob had posted I’ll bet that Integera is the likely suitors.

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