Telecom Ramblings

This Industry Viewpoint was contributed by David W Wang

The SD-WAN (software defined – wide area network) era has come. A few years ago, buzzwords like SDN (software defined network) and NFV (network function virtualization) were mostly network architectural concepts, but now SD-WAN has evolved into a disruptive technology and service that can truly revolutionize and benefit the IT/Telecom market and industry on a global scale. [Read more →]

The drama appears to be over, and Verizon is expected to announce an agreement to acquire Yahoo before markets open this morning.  They had been the favorite going in, but faced some competition from both AT&T and private equity sources in what felt like a rather long auction process. [Read more →]

We have a few new job listings to peruse over on the Ramblings Jobs Board. [Read more →]

Here’s a quick rundown of some other news from this week that’s worth a quick look: [Read more →]

Verizon’s planned acquisition of XO seems to have hit a slow patch this summer.  The FCC yesterday hit the pause button on its 180 day review period in a letter posted here, leaving things in a bit of limbo for the moment. [Read more →]

The trend of colocation players buying renewable energy in bulk continued today with Digital Realty Trust.  The data center REIT has done a deal with E.ON Climate & Renewables North America, LLC to offset 100% of its power needs across its colo and interconnection footprint.  [Read more →]

Here’s some international networking news quick-takes: [Read more →]

It’s time for a quick update on news from the metro: [Read more →]

This article was authored by John C. Tanner, and was originally posted on telecomasia.net.

Last week the FCC voted unanimously to open up nearly 11 GHz of high-frequency spectrum – 3.85 GHz of licensed spectrum and 7 GHz of unlicensed spectrum – for “flexible, mobile, and fixed use wireless broadband”, which basically means 5G. [Read more →]

Netrality Properties has hit the acquisition trail again.  The company has closed the acquisition of two data centers from Digital Realty Trust out in St. Louis, Missouri as well as a bit of colo from 365 Data Centers.  I’ve hear d whispers of this deal for most of the past couple of quarters, but it took a while to work out the details it seems. [Read more →]

Here’s a quick bit of news from three global service providers from the start of this week: [Read more →]

On Friday, Zayo revealed a new customer win for longhaul dark fiber.  An unnamed ‘major U.S. carrier’ has tapped them for a 20 year fiber IRU worth $50M spanning some 3,200 route miles through nine markets and eight states.   [Read more →]

Of all the new technologies that are now coming of age in the infrastructure world, it is SDN and NFV that are causing the most wide-ranging shifts.  All vendors have been preparing for the new milieu, but few have taken as dramatic steps as Ciena did with the purchase and integration of Cyan last year.  Tying those capabilities in with their Services division, they have quickly put together the means to help network operators hit the accelerator on SDN and NFV at just the right time.  With us today to talk about how they see it all panning out are Pamela Morgan, Services Marketing Lead for Ciena’s Services division, and Joe Cumello, VP of Portfolio Marketing at Ciena. [Read more →]

Here’s a quick rundown of some news on this Friday, which has been marred by the horror in the French City of Nice. [Read more →]

This Industry Viewpoint was contributed by Robin Kent, director of European operations at Adax

The speed at which the telecoms industry is needing to keep up with rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) is quite alarming. Network operators are frantically trying to make sure everything is in place to satisfy the inevitable end user demands and expectations. We’ve heard about [Read more →]

After a year of retrenching and refocusing on its core businesses, EarthLink has returned to the M&A arena with a small summer deal.  The service provider has bought Boston Retail Partners, a management consulting firm that specializes in the retail vertical. [Read more →]

AT&T is putting more resources into its Business Fiber division.  According to a series of PRs yesterday, the company has expanded its potential fiber reach to as many as one million businesses nationwide.  They are also extending next generation voice and UC solutions along that fiber to their business customers along the 1Gbps connections they are offering.   [Read more →]

Yesterday, Level 3 stock surged a few dollars on the backs of a bit of good old fashioned rumor and speculation.  Benzinga reported to its users that Level 3 is considering strategic options that range from a stock buyback to a sale of the company.  Follow-on reports quickly brought in the suggestion of an eventual buyout by Comcast, which Cowen’s Colby Syneseal speculated about at the end of last year. [Read more →]

The world of software-defined networking got a new consortium today up in northern New England.  The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory has kicked off the effort in order to help vendors and network operators work together to solve the problems that will inevitably arise with the coming deployments of both SDN and NFV. [Read more →]

TelePacific has made another move onto the national stage, expanding out from its regional roots via organic means this time.  The competitive service provider has rolled out advanced Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) capabilities in a pilot project  in a collection of states around the country.   [Read more →]

It’s time for a quick rundown of some news from the start of this week: [Read more →]

Something interesting has happened in the gaming world over the past week, and I’m starting to think the repercussions could spread pretty quickly. An old game has been presented in a new way, melding silly cute imaginary creatures with Google Maps, GPS, and lots of mobile bandwidth. I’m speaking of course about Pokemon Go, which is sweeping far more quickly through the airwaves than people think. [Read more →]

Zayo is expanding on the international front, but this time via organic means.  They have been selected by an unnamed global cloud communications provider to hook up nine data centers in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.  As Zayo isn’t in Asia yet, that’s where the expansion comes in. [Read more →]