Telecom Ramblings

TW Telecom (NASDAQ:TWTC - chart, news, filings) announced two customer contracts today with FirstCall Network and Members Credit Union.  As the competitive metro fiber operator with the most lit buildings nationwide, they have long focused on mid-market customers with great success.  I’m quite curious to see the company’s Q2 earnings report, in the light of others that have reported thus far.  I’m sure there will be another 250 [Read more →]

Back in March, a group of investors down in New Zealand started Pacific Fibre, a planned direct link from the country to North America.  There was some skepticism that the effort would get off the ground, but they now have some new backing.  Pacnet, the regional undersea cable operator, has signed on to the team.  [Read more →]

This is a guest post by Paolo Gorgò, who blogs over at Nortia Research.  Anyone else who might be interested in a guest post may contact the webmaster.

Equinix (NASDAQ:EQIX - chart, news, filings)  will report earnings tonight.

This quarter will also include Switch and Data revenues (from May 1^st), and the conference call will represent an interesting update on the integration efforts (and planned future [Read more →]

When the larger competitive carriers report earnings, other news tends to get drowned out around here.  That can’t be helped, but we can at least catch up.  Here are a few interesting items that have come up in the past few days:

CENX added another puzzle piece to its Carrier Ethernet Exchange business in the form of [Read more →]

Before the bell today, we had Level 3 Communications (NASDAQ:LVLT - chart, news, filings) issuing its Q2 2010 earnings report, which I offered a preview of yesterday.  The company did succeed in delivering on its promise of a return to core network services growth excluding the $7M asset sale last quarter.  EBITDA of $209M was roughly what I expected, and was achieved via pretty decent cost controls.  However, the market will surely be looking for a bit more than that in the second half.  Here is a quick summary of the company’s relevant metrics alongside prior quarters: [Read more →]

As expected, Global Crossing (NASDAQ:GLBC - chart, news, filings) issued its Q2/2010 earnings report this afternoon after the market closed.   The top line revenue number of $630M was lower than the street had it pegged at, but this was due to a $20M reduction in the company’s low margin wholesale voice business after the company raised prices in an effort to improve those margins.  Much of the rest of the company’s numbers weren’t too far off from the guesses I made yesterday, though I was a bit too optimistic on GCUK revenues.   Here is a quick tabular summary putting the company’s quarter in the context of the past four quarters: [Read more →]

Tomorrow before the bell Level 3 Communications (NASDAQ:LVLT - chart, news, filings) will report earnings, which means it is time for a quick earnings preview.  Analysts expect total revenues of $910M, flat with the prior quarter and a loss of $0.11 per share.  As is often the case, I am slightly more optimistic.  But when it comes to Level 3, the details are more important than those overall numbers.  The key right now for Level 3 is to demonstrate tangible growth in their core network services.  They know it, the street knows it, everyone knows it.  Here is a quick table of my own projections in the context of the prior few quarters: [Read more →]

Colocation, hosting, and cloud operator Savvis (NASDAQ:SVVS - chart, news, filings) issued its earnings report for the second quarter, during which they acquired Canadian provider Fusepoint.  That deal, which closed on June 16, added $1.5M in revenue and $3.5M in M&A-related costs to the company’s results, skewing things only slightly.  Overall, the company saw reasonable growth over the prior quarter that was roughly inline with expectations. [Read more →]

International network operator Global Crossing (NASDAQ:GLBC - chart, news, filings) will hold its earnings CC on Tuesday morning, which means that if past behavior holds they will release their earnings PR on Monday after the market closes.  Hence it is time once again for a preview, the idea being to help frame our expectations in context beforehand.  The biggest feature for Global Crossing is its 2010 guidance, which suggests a hefty ramp through the remainder of the year for the company’s core revenues and OIBDA.  Analysts, however, expect total Q2 revenues in the neighborhood of [Read more →]

While Zayo has been certainly active on the M&A front for metropolitan fiber networks, they have also been making moves to build unique regional fiber routes in underserved areas as well.  Two announcements this week highlight that trend, with one project in partnership with rural ILECs, and the other receiving broadband stimulus funding.  
[Read more →]

The economic overhang is greater right now over on the other side of the Atlantic, and it shows in the results of pan-European network operator Colt Group (LSE:COLT.L - chart, news).  Revenues for the first half were €794.2M, down from €817.4M last year.  For several years now, Colt has fought steadily declining voice revenues with increasing data and managed services revenues, but thus far in 2010 data revenues haven’t grown, and in fact were down slightly from €398.4M to €396.8M.  Looking deeper, the weakness was rather specifically with the large enterprises, whereas data revenues for mid-sized enterprises and wholesale customers both advanced.  Managed services revenue was [Read more →]

After the markets closed, DWDM specialist Infinera (NASDAQ:INFN - chart, news, filings) reported its Q2 earnings, easily trumping analyst expectations.  It has been my position for several quarters now that Infinera positioned itself very well during the recession by widening its customer base despite the meager carrier spending at the time.  Those efforts are now, perhaps, beginning to tell, as Infinera’s Q1 results were also ahead of expectations and the company seems to be accelerating now [Read more →]