Telecom Ramblings

So earlier this week, rumors emerged that Verizon (NYSE:VZ, news, filings) was considering buying Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX, news, filings). Well, actually the source was a serial Netflix-buyout speculator who said that the company might consider it, but you know how these things snowball in low news periods. [Read more →]

This article was authored by Don Sambandaraksa, and was originally posted on telecomasia.net.

I spent much of last week sorting out a network and ADSL connection in a small rural Buddhist hilltop monastery in the Northeast of England. Ratanagiri Monaster is located in Harnham, a small hilltop community near Belsay, near Newcastle. This should have been an easy, straightforward job, but [Read more →]

Here are a few items of interest over the past few days the metro/CLEC world: [Read more →]

Verizon (NYSE:VZ, news, filings) has been the main early adopter of 100G technology in US terrestrial deployments so far, and today they took another step along that path. The telecommunications giant says it will be upgrading its IP backbone in major markets across the country by deploying the CRS-3 from Cisco closer to the edge. [Read more →]

Seems like Phoenix-based IO’s datacenter module business is accelerating into the holiday season, as they have two more announcements out already this week.  Yesterday, ISSQUARED [Read more →]

Telecommunications giant AT&T (NYSE:T, news, filings) has had enough for the moment, they’ve asked the referee for a one month timeout. The referee of course is the Judge Huvelle, who is overseeing the DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit opposing their propowed purchase of T-Mobile USA. She has granted a joint motion giving AT&T one month to decide just what to do next. [Read more →]

Well, it didn’t take too long for Integra to make up its mind about who will lead the company after Tom Casey left for Tronox two months ago. Kevin O’Hara, who has been serving as executive chairman since then has now been formally named Chief Executive Officer.  [Read more →]

WiMAX and now LTE upstart clwr said this morning that its underwriters have exercised their option to purchase those additional 26.25M shares as part of the company’s public offering. That means another $52.5M in cash for the company’s LTE buildout, making the total cash infusion just over [Read more →]

In merger news this morning, ADTRAN (NASDAQ:ADTN, news, filings) has agreed to acquire the broadband access business unit of Nokia Siemens Networks including the associated professional services, network managemeng solutions, and of course the underlying intellectual property.  ADTRAN has a substantial position in the broadband access equipment market already, and this deal will give them some additional heft – especially via [Read more →]

When AT&T withdrew it’s merger application from the FCC, they hoped to simplify their task by temporarily eliminating one battle front so they could focus on the other. They moved very quickly over the long Thanksgiving weekend while the bureaucrats were out of the off so as to stop the FCC from actually taking the action they had been about to put for a vote.  But in that haste for a tactical triumph, they may have forgotten to think about the strategic implementations of pulling their FCC papers. [Read more →]

Two more job postings have popped up on the Telecom Ramblings Jobs Board, this time from sidera.  After a brisk summer of job postings, we haven’t seen too many new listings over the past month or two.  I suppose that’s not so surprising given the consolidation related layoffs going on plus that event over at XO in October – more feet are definitely on the street. [Read more →]

TGIF, two weekends to go before Christmas. Here’s a quick rundown of news from the industry that I didn’t get to earlier: [Read more →]

Yesterday a reader left a comment which asked whether the lack of M&A activity by the likes of AboveNet, Cogent, and tw telecom risks being passed by more aggressive acquirers, specifically Level 3 and Zayo. I think that the answer to this question is not so straightforward. It is both human and corporate nature to [Read more →]

National metro operator abvt said today that its board of directors has authorized a share buyback program of up to $200M throuh the end of next year. It’s not as if they aren’t *trying* to spend it all on expansions of course, since they’ve been averaging capex of more than 30% of revenue for some time now.  [Read more →]

Network equipment specialist Ciena (NASDAQ:CIEN, news, filings) gave us our latest window into how the equipment sector is faring as it reported its fiscal fourth quarter and full year 2011 results, which means up through the end of October.  It has now been 6 quarters since the company bought Nortel’s MEN division and the second in a row that they reported positive adjusted earnings per share, although Ciena has been in the doghouse with investors since June’s earnings report.  Here’s a quick table of the relevant numbers in context: [Read more →]

As I figured they do if they could, clwr has expanded the size of its public offering to $350M from its initial $300M goal. oversubscription, the usual 15%. The shares have now also been priced at [Read more →]

With all those smartphones and tablets out there enabling people to do all sorts of things they’ve never done before on a mobile device, you’d think people would be happier with their wireless carriers than they were last year.  But according to a Consumer Reports survey out today, it’s just not so. [Read more →]

I will be updating my metro fiber and on-net building list over the next week or two, so if there’s data that anyone out there thinks ought to be included please send it along.  In the meantime, here’s a quick look at a few items in the metro fiber space over the past few days: [Read more →]

Just when you thought the telecom M&A scene was winding down for the year, Minnesota-based HickoryTech (NASDAQ:HTCO, news, filings) is getting one in for the holidays. HickoryTech is spending $28M in cash to acquire North Dakota’s IdeaOne Telecom, which operates a metro fiber network in Fargo. HickoryTech’s Enventis subsidiary expanded westward into [Read more →]

Let’s take a quick look at some news from the gear-makers lately: [Read more →]

Following quickly on the heels of the closing of the PAETEC deal, Windstream (NYSE:WIN, news, filings) has a new network map on its website illustrating the newly unified asset base and LEC coverage areas.  It brings together the combined footprints of [Read more →]

WiMAX operator and LTE hopeful clwr is wasting no time following up on last week’s financing deal with Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S, news, filings). Clearwire said yesterday that it intends to sell up to $300M of its class A common stock in a public offering, with an additional $45M on tap for overflows. Of course, I strongly suspect [Read more →]

Today modular data center operator and manufacturer IO made an interesting move, offering its IO OS data center operating system as a standalone software product. Originally designed for its modular IO Anywhere product, the software also offers intelligent control of [Read more →]