Telecom Ramblings

International network operator Global Crossing (GLBC: chart, news) has unveiled plans to upgrade its MAC, PAC, and SAC submarine cable systems.  These systems work together to link the Caribbean, Central America, and South America to both the east and west coasts of North America and the new capacity will come online during Q2 and Q3.  Global Crossing isn’t the only increasing capacity to and from Latin America, just a few days ago Globenet announced the completion of an upgrade of its own.  However, I was somewhat surprised to see this upgrade, considering [Read more →]

Over the past few days, it has emerged in stages that the wireline division of Sprint Nextel (S: chart, news) has lost its VoIP outsourcing contract with Time Warner Cable.  Sanford & Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett broke the story with a reasearch note, and apparently TW Cable has confirmed its new plans to bring the business in-house over the next four years.  Moffett’s calculations apparently peg the outsourcing deal at $10-11 per VoIP subscriber, and that some $250M or 25% of Sprint wireline’s EBITDA is at stake.  I can’t judge the accuracy of those numbers, but if he’s even [Read more →]

A group of New Zealand investors are putting together an effort to build another cable in the Pacific, this one connecting the US directly to New Zealand and Australia, similar to the current Southern Cross cable.  New Zealand is preparing a high speed domestic fiber network effort, and a big part of that is having enough diverse international connectivity to feed it.  However their geographical position often limits their connectivity options unless they take the problem on themselves, which is precisely what they are [Read more →]

Abovenet (ABVT: chart, news) was one of the better stories in the internet infrastructure sector during the recession of 2009.  Re-emerging just over a year ago into the limelight after almost a decade of oblivion, the company has quickly taken up the mantle of leadership in the metro fiber space with high EBITDA margins, double digit growth rates, and even a 2-1 stock split.  With us today to tell us where the company is headed now is the architect of that comeback:  AboveNet’s President and CEO, Bill LaPerch: [Read more →]

Competitive fiber operator Zayo has had a couple of news items over the last few days.  First, they picked up a contract in Michigan with managed data center provider Online Tech.  They will be providing a diverse fiber path hooking up the company’s data center in Ann Arbor.  The Ann Arbor metro fiber footprint derives from the former KMC assets that Zayo [Read more →]

Metro fiber comeback story Abovenet (ABVT: chart, news) reported its Q4 earnings this morning, closing the book on what was one of the few unequivocally positive stories amidst the economic turmoil of 2009.  Revenues, EBITDA, and capex were all inline with guidance and perhaps slightly above analyst expectations.  Earnings per share of $7.96 included a huge non-cash income tax benefit, probably due to advance recognition of NOLs – GAAP can be strange sometimes.  Here is a quick table putting their results in context. [Read more →]

Telecommunications equipment provider Ciena (CIEN: chart, news) has raised $375M in convertible notes due 2015.  They will be using the proceeds to pay for their acquisition of Nortel’s MEN unit.  The credit markets seem to have looked favorably on the offer, which began at $250M.  The notes priced at an interest rate of 4% and are convertible at $20.38 – a premium of [Read more →]

While I tried to stay out of it, the hype reached stratospheric levels over the last week in the runup to Cisco’s announcement.  What could Cisco possibly have been planning that could “forever change the Internet and its impact on consumers, businesses and government” yet somehow keep it secret this long?  Well, nothing really was going to fit the bill after the media got done speculating.  So what did they have to announce?  Precisely what everyone should have expected them to announce:  absolutely gigantic new [Read more →]

While the news of ABRY’s proposed purchase of RCN (RCNI: chart, news) overshadows all else and led to the canceling of their investor call, the broadband and metro fiber company still reported earnings today.  As always, I look mostly at the RCN Metro segment, which delivers thick pipes to the wholesale bandiwdth and data intensive enterprise segment.   [Read more →]

Several bits of news from the undersea cable front in the last day or two, here’s a quick look.

Globenet and Alcatel-Lucent (ALU: chart, news) have completed an upgrade to Globenet’s submarine cables connecting North and South America. Along with increased capacity of 110Gbps on its submarine segments, the landing stations in [Read more →]

Verizon says it is now ready to take the plunge.  In another demonstration run on 1,520km of fiber north of Dallas, the telecommunications giant teamed with Finisar, NEC and Juniper put together the most complete 100Gps trial to date.  Rather than just test a piece at a time, this demo sent video traffic via a 100Gbps interface to Juniper T1600, Finisar 100G CFP optical transceiver modules, and an NEC SpectralWave DWDM system equipped with 100G real-time coherent transponders.  Wow, that was a jargon filled [Read more →]