Telecom Ramblings

EarthLink made a move this afternoon to streamline its business, selling off its IT division to Synoptek.  The deal more than doubles Synoptek’s size straight off the bat, bringing in 1,700 IT services customers to join their existing 400+ worldwide.  It gives them a deeper network footprint, particularly on the east coast of the US, and adds a complementary data center footprint.   [Read more →]

This Industry Viewpoint was contributed by David W Wang

As 2016 just kicked in, the news swirled that Verizon Communications may start to sell off their data centers for billions of cash in return. While such news is not really a surprise, since other major telcos like AT&T, CenturyLink, and Windstream have already done or considered doing so, it is surely dramatic. Only five or six years ago these telcos were rushing [Read more →]

This article was authored by Jouko Ahvenainen, and was originally posted on telecomasia.net.

Everyone wants to work with startups and accelerate disruptive ideas nowadays. Corporates have also realized, they are not fast enough to develop new models and react to external changes with their old operating models. That’s why they want to [Read more →]

Here’s a quick roundup of some other news from around the world from this week: [Read more →]

Back from MetroConnect, here are a few metro stories I had missed in the chaos that are worth noting: [Read more →]

Still on the road today, but here’s a set of quick takes on news from the sector: [Read more →]

They have something to celebrate out in Overland Park, Kansas after a long drought. Sprint’s first quarter earnings came in stronger than expected, and the company’s stock price has surged 20% in response. [Read more →]

Apparently China isn’t the only major market left where Netflix will have to do some work to get off the ground. Indonesia’s dominant provider PT Telkom has apparently blocked access to the OTT provider’s video offerings as of Wednesday morning. [Read more →]

Here’s a quick rundown on some news from the vendor side of things spanning four continents: [Read more →]

FirstLight Fiber announced an expansion into a new region this morning, and this time the vector isn’t M&A.  They have added new fiber in Westchester, Rockland, and Orange counties in the state of New York. [Read more →]

This article was authored by Stefan Hammond, and was originally posted on telecomasia.net.

Prepare to hear a lot about 4K this year. And expect vendors to laud their shiny offerings – a vortex of verbiage will spin from those hyping hardware and software products. [Read more →]

This Industry Viewpoint was contributed by Ashley Unitt, founder and CTO of NewVoiceMedia.

We ended 2015 with full consensus that the internet needs improved security and data protection. Hackers breached too much data from government and corporate entities, and their momentum seemed almost completely uninhibited. We were concerned about the ethics [Read more →]

On Telecom Ramblings we tend to cover the more visible parts of the sector.  But there are others that do a whole lot of the work behind the scenes in building out the infrastructure we depend so heavily on.  With us today to talk about the realities deploying gear and building networks for operators is Michael Jonas, President Global Sales & Marketing at LightRiver Technologies.  LightRiver generally flies under the radar, but recently kicked off 2016 with a newly redesigned website. [Read more →]

We have three new job listings to look at over on the Ramblings’ Jobs Board. [Read more →]

With the Allstream acquisition finalized, Zayo turned its attention today to its organic buildouts.  Today they announced yet another expansion project in the state of Indiana. [Read more →]

Next week I’ll be posting from Miami as I attend Metro Connect. If you’re going to be there and would like to bend my ear, do let me know! In the meantime, here’s a quick wrapup of the rest of the news from this week that for whatever reason I didn’t get to earlier: [Read more →]

Another US service provider has designs on the Canadian marketplace. Primus Telecommunications Canada has been granted creditor protection north of the border, saying it needs the cover as it restructures and sells its assets to Birch Communications. [Read more →]

As we do every year on Telecom Ramblings, we kicked off January with a pair of reader polls asking about US network operators a) Who is likely buying, and b) Who is probably selling.  The results this year were quite interesting.  While the top picks for both buyers and sellers were perennial favorites, the next layer showed significant shifts from last year. [Read more →]

The colocation side of infrastructure saw another significant M&A this morning.  TierPoint has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Omaha-based Cosentry. [Read more →]

Here’s another quick roundup of other news from around the world this week: [Read more →]

With the world’s growing awareness of the security of its data, or lack thereof, 2016 seems likely to see a lot of attention paid to new efforts to keep out prying eyes. Today, Ciena took a stab at the problem way down at the optical layer with a new encryption solution. [Read more →]

In addition to all the international and subsea activity we’ve seen the past few days, there’s been some US colo and interconnection news to look at as well: [Read more →]

With 23 facilities now in service across the U.S., EdgeConneX is taking aim at a new market.  They will be opening their first edge data center across the Atlantic in Amsterdam. [Read more →]