Telecom Ramblings

Telecommunications giant AT&T (NYSE:T - chart, news, filings) reported its Q2 earnings this morning.  On the wireless front, the company activated another 3.2M iPhones and added a net 1.6M wireless subscribers to reach 90.1M in service.  Revenues of $30.8B were slightly under analyst projections, but entirely within the normal range.  Earnings per share were $0.68, of which $0.07 came from a stock transaction with Telmex.  Even excluding that, however, [Read more →]

Several news items went by that deserve a mention:

We don’t often hear about the data center business of XO Holdings (OTCBB:XOHO.OB - chart, news, filings), but it does exist.  Yesterday non other than Thomson Reuters agreed to lease colocation space in the competitive provider’s Minneapolis facility.  The space will become [Read more →]

For Level 3 Communications (NASDAQ:LVLT - chart, news, filings) and its CDN division, it’s been quite a summer for live sports.  It seems like every week there is an event somewhere they are handling the streaming for.  Some of them are the big events like the World Cup and the Tour de France, but others are lesser known but with an online following.

This morning the company announced that it is providing its end-to-end Internet Broadcast services to FUEL TV, serving live HD both online and to their iPhone application.  FUEL TV’s events are things like [Read more →]

So Harbinger finally launched its wireless juggernaut yesterday.  The idea is to take a pile of spectrum previously assigned to satellite communications, and build a ‘truly open and net neutral wireless network’ based on LTE which will be wholesaled to other industry participants and change the rules of the game.  It’s a grand vision of course, and one which will no doubt spur its share of interesting news over the next few years. [Read more →]

Both Infinera (NASDAQ:INFN - chart, news, filings) and Ciena (NASDAQ:CIEN - chart, news, filings) picked up wins with regional fiber operators yesterday:  

Ciena went south of the border yesterday for a contract with TransTelco.  TransTelco operates a 2,500 mile fiber network spanning the US-Mexico border, helping to hook up two very different markets.  They have announced the implementation of [Read more →]

Router maker Juniper Networks (NASDAQ:JNPR - chart, news, filings) reported earnings yesterday after the bell, as the Q2 earnings season begins in earnest.  Revenues of $978.3M was just above the range the company guided to back in April, and beat analyst expectations which weren’t much different than guidance.  Likewise, non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.30 topped guidance of $0.27-0.29 and the street’s expectations of [Read more →]

Aside from the NTELOS/FiberNet deal, there were several other interesting news items from companies with a substantial metro fiber orientation:

Optimum Lightpath, the metro fiber division of Cablevision, has now established a connection with CENX’s Carrier Ethernet Exchange.  To the equation they bring some 4000 route miles of fiber connecting some 4000 lit buildings to date throughout the New York City metropolitan area.  CENX boasts some [Read more →]

In a further development in the metro and regional M&A rumble that has been developing all year, regional operator nTelos (NASDAQ:NTLS - chart, news, filings) has agreed to buy FiberNet, a division of One Communications.  For a price tag of $170M in cash, NTELOS will be gaining some 3,500 miles of metro and regional fiber throughout West Virginia and extending into the surrounding states of [Read more →]

Hosting and cloud provider Navisite (NASDAQ:NAVI - chart, news, filings) got itself a buyout offer yesterday.  According to an SEC filing, Atlantic Investors LLC is offering to purchase all outstanding common shares that it doesn’t own for $3.05 – they currently own over 36%.  What makes this buyout offer special is that its CEO Arthur Becker and the chairman of the board Andrew Ruhan, have [Read more →]

Intellifiber, the independently operated fiber network owned by Cavalier, has won a substantial contract with Telecom Transport Management for wireless backhaul.  Intellifiber will provide backhaul service from some 500 wireless towers across the state of Virginia, including cities such as Richmond, Norfolk, Lynchburg, Roanoke, Williamsburg and Petersburg.  For Intellifiber, the addition of [Read more →]

The rumors last week were true: Nokia Siemens has indeed agreed to purchase Motorola’s wireless equipment business.  The price tag for those $3.5-4.0B in revenues is apparently $1.2B.  For that price, Nokia will gain greater scale in the US and Asian marketplaces, including ‘incumbent [Read more →]

Back in March, plans by Harbinger Capital Partners became public to take spectrum formerly intended for the satellite business and repurpose it into a national wireless network based on LTE via the vehicle SkyTerra.  The prospect of a brand new 4G network in the US that stands independent of the large established players is of course enticing.  However, there are still some hurdles that must be cleared first it seems. [Read more →]