Telecom Ramblings

Ok so I skipped the word ’significantly’, but still the headline seems like a solid candidate for the ‘Well, duh…’ files to me.  But anyway, Verizon Wireless has been field testing 4G LTE in Boston and Seattle, and has been seeing peak speeds of 30-40Mbps down and 15-20Mbps up.  Those are of course welcome numbers, but nothing particularly surprising.  The key of course will not be peak performance, but the speeds you get under load – more specifically when surrounded by smartphone users. Verizon says that ‘real world’ conditions yielded speeds of [Read more →]

It’s been a busy PR morning for network operators – busy enough to bring on a ’roundup’ post that I more commonly do on weekends.

Orange Business Services, the international services arm of France Telecom (FTE: chart, news) announced today it is enabling the unified communications (UC) strategy of NXP Semiconductors BV worldwide.  Some 15,000 employees have been migrated to the Managed Microsoft Office Communications Server (Release 2) service hosted by Orange.  According to NXP, the key features are [Read more →]

Japanese telecommunications giant NTT Communications (NTT: chart, news) has been giving its global network services division, Arcstar some focus lately. The company has made another move into Russia with the interconnection of its own IPVPN with those of operator TTK, whose fiber runs along the railroad tracks across those vast distances.  It’s not the first time the two have worked together, having collaborated on the Hokkaido-Sakhalin Cable System a few years ago.  This new move expands the reach of Arcstar’s Global IPVPN services throughout [Read more →]

Level 3 Communications (LVLT: chart, news) brought its local markets initiative to northern California.  They will be grouping together the markets of San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, and Sacramento with a general manager, and will be adding both capacity and staff in the region.  This is the second such initiative on the west coast, the first being up in Seattle last summer. No doubt we will see a southern California initiative at some point as well, however [Read more →]

Competitive broadband provider RCN (RCNI: chart, news) on Friday announced that it has agreed to a buyout offer from private equity firm ABRY Partners.  The price of $15/share represented a 22% premium to the stock price before the announcement, and along with the assumption of debt the total value of the deal is $1.2B.  It’s not a done deal yet, as RCN can still solicit competing offers for another 40 days.  In the meantime, the company has canceled its Q4 earnings call. Whether they get any depends on how prospective buyers view [Read more →]

Hybrid fiber/wireless backhaul network operator Fibertower (FTWR: chart, news) reported Q4 earnings last night.  With all the restructuring activity, it is somewhat difficult to make sense of the company’s numbers right off the bat.  However, the balance sheet now has $50.7M in unrestricted cash and $154.5M in long term debt, much easier to support but at the cost of three times as many shares outstanding.  They have bought themselves time, so where are they operationally? [Read more →]

Network equipment manufacturer Ciena (CIEN: chart, news) reported its fiscal Q1 results today.  That’s for the three months ending January 31st, which means we get an early glimpse of some early first quarter effects.  Revenues of $175.9M were down slightly from the prior quarter and were below analyst expectations in the 180s.  The company blamed delays in revenue recognition associated with initial deployments for several customers for [Read more →]

Here are a few interesting datapoints that have crossed the wires this week:

Metro fiber specialist American Fiber Systems has been busy out in the Rockies.  On Tuesday they announced the completion of an upgraded intercity ring connecting its four markets in the region:  Las Vegas, Reno, Boise, and Salt Lake City.  The unique ring consists of 18,720 fiber miles in all, and enables the company to offer [Read more →]

Here is a video of the FCC Chairman discussing his national broadband policy and why we need it: [Read more →]

Competitive fiber and data provider TW Telecom (TWTC: chart, news) announced today that it intends to raise $430M in senior notes due 2018 .  They intend to use the money to refinance their current 9.25% bonds due 2014, of which there is $400M currently outstanding. What’s interesting here is that the debt just became callable at just above 103% of face value on February 15, but they aren’t calling it.  They are tendering for it at 100.4% with another 3% consent payment, and are seeking [Read more →]

Competitive service provider Cbeyond (CBEY: chart, news) released its Q4 and full year 2009 financials today.  Q4 Revenues of $107.7 were up sequentially but somewhat weaker than expected due to lower ARPU levels of $727, down from $744 in the prior quarter.  However, revenues have never really been the company’s weak spot, and they made up for it with strong Q4 EBITDA of $19M and earnings per share of $0.03, up from $15.3M and -$0.01 in the prior quarter and ahead of expectations.  Churn [Read more →]