Telecom Ramblings

The close of the markets today brought news of a significant fiber M&A out in the Midwest. The infrastructure investment fund Macquarie Infrastructure Partners has announced an agreement to buy Bluebird Network. Uniti Fiber will be helping make the deal happen by acquiring Bluebird's fiber and leasing it back to Bluebird, with Uniti's other Midwestern fiber and operations going along for the ride. [Read more →]

The enteprise division of Windstream has been busily tuning its approach to the market, and today they lifted the curtain on a new portal, WE Connect. [Read more →]

The eastern seaboard has a new regional infrastructure name to remember. Lumos Networks and Spirit Communications have announced a rebranding under the name Segra. [Read more →]

Some of the newer fiber in Virginia is changing private equity hands. Late last week SummitIG and SDC Capital Partners did a deal that will see SDC take a majority interest in the company. [Read more →]

Some fiber, some managed support, and some AI-enabled data center gear: [Read more →]

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Hamza Seqqat, Director of Solutions Architecture, Apcela

SD-WAN is starting to see a high rate of adoption among enterprises. For most companies, however, it’s still early days of their SD-WAN implementation. Most are focused on getting the “Day One” [Read more →]

Some other catch-up from this week: two enterprise solutions, some submarine cable progress, and a customer contract: [Read more →]

Chayora's effort to bring modern hyperscale data center design to China has passed a big milestone. The Hong Kong-based infrastructure company has completed the buildout of primary infrastructure, support buildings, and the first data hall of the first phase of its TJ1 facility in northern Tianjin. [Read more →]

Two IoT solutions in progress, one IP backbone expansion, and a submarine upgrade: [Read more →]

I've been travelling for the past week, so there's plenty to catch up on.  Here are quick takes on two purchases, a JV, and an enterprise colo deal. [Read more →]

A substantial chunk of data center space has changed hands outside of Chicago. Element Critical announced this morning the acquisition of two facilities in the Chicago Suburbs, adding 195,000 square feet of space to the company's portfolio and entering a new market. [Read more →]

This article was authored by Dylan Bushell-Embling, and was originally posted on telecomasia.net.

Japan's NTT Communications has expanded its North American footprint with the establishment of a new point of presence in [Read more →]

The annual M&A polls for buyers and sellers will still stay up for the next few weeks, but we have more than a few votes in so let's take a quick peak. [Read more →]

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Praveen Chalamalasetti, Vishwa Nigam, and Rakesh Roy at Prodapt.

VoD/CDN delivery ecosystem

Video on demand (VoD) continues to grow at an unprecedented rate as millions of users subscribe to digital on-demand video viewing experience globally. Cisco predicts that the IP video traffic will be [Read more →]

This Industry Viewpoint was contributed by Doug Turtz, Vice President Fiber Sales at Crown Castle Fiber

Schools have come a long way in just one generation. Not too long ago, you most likely learned in a classroom with a chalkboard or whiteboard and received direct instruction. In other words, the teacher spoke, you listened and perhaps took some notes. There were regular [Read more →]

Yesterday, we asked who the likely targets of consolidation will be in 2019.  Today we reverse the question and ask who the likely strategic buyers of network infrastructure are in 2019.  Who has both the appetite and the financial wherewithal to make some deals this year? [Read more →]

This article was authored by Dylan Bushell-Embling, and was originally posted on telecomasia.net.

Two thirds of large organizations surveyed by Gartner have plans to deploy 5G by 2020, but operators may struggle to meet enterprise demand in time, the research firm said. [Read more →]

Happy New Year!  It's that time of year again to take stock of the M&A landscape in the world of network operators.  Which network operators do you think are most likely to get bought this year?  Last year, we didn't do so well.  Last year, four of the top ten picks changed hands: FirstLight, Everstream, Cross River Fiber, and Sprint (still pending of course).   [Read more →]

Welcome back everyone!  Some folks at Windstream had a busier holiday week than they probably preferred, as the company finished the year with the sale of a few more non-core assets.  Windstream has sold the legacy EarthLink consumer business to Trive Capital. [Read more →]

After the carnage of last year's predictions, one might think I'd be gun shy about making more for 2019.  Hiding under a rock definitely sounds like a safer option this year, but I'll risk it anyway.  I think it's actually easier to make predictions in chaos, because nobody expects you to have a clue. [Read more →]

After yesterday's look at the North American network markets, let's take a jaunt through a few of the infrastructure deals around the world.  I don't cover every market and certainly don't claim this to be comprehensive, but this is a quick sampling of what I kept an eye on at least. [Read more →]

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Matt Hiles, Chief Operating Officer at Mosaic NetworX

If your organization is planning on implementing WAN improvements, you might consider SD-WAN and branch Internet last-mile circuits to augment, or replace, your MPLS circuits. In doing so, [Read more →]

It seems like almost year since 2018 began. Oh wait, it actually has been almost a year. The world of infrastructure M&A was a fairly busy one once again, and I'll bet that many have forgotten swaths of the year's events. Let's take a quick look back. [Read more →]