Wednesday Bytes 1/23: Emerald, Level 3, ADVA, Equinix, ChinaCache

Time for a mid-week roundup of news worthy of a quick look, with items from Emerald Networks in the Atlantic, Level 3 in the channel, ADVA in the Balkans, Equinix in the cloud, and ChinaCache in, well, China.

Emerald Networks has figured out where its planned transatlantic cable will be coming ashore. Yesterday they announced the a Landing Party Agreement with AT&T to use the former TAT12/13 landing station in Shirley NY out on Long Island. The project plans a 100G-enabled connection to the west coast of Ireland with a branch up to Iceland and its budding geothermal-powered data center alley. They’re also talking about a branch to Portugal at some point, but first things first – the ready for service date is planned as mid-2014, or just 18 months away.

Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) debuted a new channel program yesterday, looking to help boost its enterprise growth via better agent support. The new program features a three-pronged tier structure, more staff, enhanced resources, and an advisory board made up of executives from its channel partners to help further optimize things.  It’s not exactly the first time Level 3 has rebuilt its channel programs, but they do seem to be gaining traction in the enterprise segment now.

Adva Optical Networking (ETR:ADV, news) won a 100G contract in the Balkans, where they’ve deployed their FSP 3000 gear for the Croatian national electricity company Hrvatska Elektroprivreda (HEP Group). The initial link is between Zabreb and Split over 400km of fiber, and is an upgrade from a 10G deployment that was also powered by ADVA. I’m not sure how urgent Croatia’s need for 100G pipes is just yet, but it does show how quickly the bandwagon is starting to fill up.

Equinix (NASDAQ:EQIX, news, filings) is partnering with Desktone, which offers Desktop as a Service. They’ll make the cloud-based service available to their service provider customers as part of their growing Platform Equinix marketplace. In February Equinix will add a ‘Solution Validation Center’ demo environment to complement the offering.

And in China, the regional content delivery network ChinaCache added another airline to its customer rolls. China Eastern Airlines will be using their CDN to speed up the company’s website. If there’s anything in China that needs a CDN, it’s the travel industry – although the airlines are much, much easier to deal with than the trains during holiday season. Chinese New Year is in just over two weeks of course, when practically the whole country will be on the move somewhere.

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Categories: Channel · Cloud Computing · Content Distribution · Telecom Equipment · Undersea cables