Telecom Ramblings

There was a big telecommunications M&A over in Europe yesterday.  After years of talking about it, Vodafone has entered into a definitive agreement to buy a pile of assets from Liberty Global for $22.7B. [Read more →]

Fresh off the closing of its purchase of Birch, Fusion has gone out and made another acquisition.  The publicly traded cloud and network services provider has signed a definitive agreement to buy MegaPath. [Read more →]

The Atlantic will be getting yet another cable system it seems, but this time it's on a route rarely travelled.  EllaLink has won a key anchor customer for a cable system connecting Portugal with Brazil. The research and education networks GEANT and RedCLARA are putting €25M up for direct capacity between Europe and South America. [Read more →]

I have been out at ITW this week, having just returned this morning.  And of course, there's a pile of things to cover, many of which I learned more about at the event.  Here's a quick look at a few bits of that, with one network expansion, three network deployments with data center partners, and two M&A items worth noting. [Read more →]

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Gayle Levin, director of solutions marketing at Riverbed Technologies

Network configuration errors and the resulting service outages are a nightmare scenario for many network operations teams. These all-too-realistic nightmares are often the result of manual and error-prone command line interfaces (CLIs) that are still common among [Read more →]

Indiana Fiber Network is one of the more dynamic and vocal of the regional fiber builders and operators begun by coalitions of independent telephone providers around the country.  With us today to talk about what IFN has on the menu out in Indiana is CEO James (Jim) Turner.  Jim joined IFN as its new CEO last year when Kelly Dyer, whom we interviewed here a few years earlier, decided to retire.  Jim’s background is in the electric utility business, serving most recently as president of the regulated utility business at Duke Energy, which gives him a unique perspective on the evolution of the fiber sector and where regional operators might be headed from here. [Read more →]

Windstream is making progress toward making its fiber network a fully national proposition. Earlier today the company's Wholesale division announced an expansion along a new southern intercity route. [Read more →]

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

India's Bharti Airtel reportedly plans to raise up to $1.5 billion through a public listing of Bharti Airtel International, the holding company for its African operations. [Read more →]

As one of the country’s largest and most dynamic cities, Los Angeles has big infrastructure needs.  Yet its data center sector has never quite managed the growth rates we’ve seen in the NYC or Chicago or Dallas metro areas.  One of the providers looking to shift into a higher gear is the West 7 Center in downtown LA.  With us today to talk about West 7 and the Los Angeles data center market as a whole is JLL EVP Darren Eades.  JLL manages the facility for Rising Realty. [Read more →]

Zayo posted its Fiscal Q3 2018 numbers yesterday, coming up short of analyst projections.  Revenues fell sequentially to $649.4M, and Adjusted EBITDA dropped as well to $319.6M.  Churn from the company's Allstream business dragged things down relative to the prior quarter.  Earnings per share of $0.09 was a couple of pennies shy of the street's composite estimate. [Read more →]

This week DE-CIX offered some data points giving validation to the idea that demand for IX connectivity has been very strong lately. Whether measured by customers or connected capacity, the global IX operator saw very solid growth across markets worldwide. [Read more →]

Telia Carrier is taking on a bit more of the North American marketplace by making a move into Mexico. It's one more step in Telia's plan of steadily and organically adding depth to the company's global AS1299 backbone. [Read more →]

The Hawaiki cable is nearly complete, according to the company and TE Subcom. Each of the cable landings is complete, the final splice has been made, and final testing will begin shortly. That puts them on track to officially bring the cable online next month. [Read more →]

Here is a set of quick takes on news from around the world, but mostly in Europe this time: [Read more →]

Here are a few other interesting items from the week so far that are worth a look: [Read more →]

Interxion has unveiled significant expansion projects in two of continental Europe's biggest markets. [Read more →]

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

The building US-China trade war could have an even more substantial impact on the telecommunications sector following reports that Huawei may be facing a criminal probe from the US Department of Justice.  [Read more →]

Logix Fiber Networks has been busy adding new metro fiber in southeastern Texas. The new build brings 17 miles of fiber to the Houston suburb of Stafford, bringing some 1,300 businesses in range of the company's fiberoptic footprint. [Read more →]

365 Data Centers is a familiar name in the data center space, and last year a new set of owners took over with plans to take the business down a new path of growth and investment. With us today to tell us what 365 Data Centers is up to and how it looks at the market opportunities ahead is CEO Bob DeSantis, a veteran of the infrastructure business who previously co-founded and was managing partner of Xand and has held numerous roles across the sector over the years. [Read more →]

Well how about that, they actually did it. T-Mobile US and Sprint announced earlier today an agreement to merge in an all-stock combination. The combined company will be named T-Mobile, will initially serve some 127M customers, and will be led by current T-Mobile US CEO John Legere. [Read more →]

One hesitates to write these things after a while, but Reuters is reporting that the on-again-off-again merger talks between DT and Softbank about merging Sprint and T-Mobile have made progress. [Read more →]

Two bits of fiber news and a deal interrupted: [Read more →]

This industry viewpoint was authored by Gilles Geerts, IP Consulting Engineer, Nokia

There is a good deal of buzz around SD-WAN these days. One of its great virtues is its flexibility in delivering secure, connectivity over multiple transport technologies. So, for instance, if a service provider wants to extend its VPN business services to areas of its territory where it doesn’t have IP/MPLS technology, it can [Read more →]