Telecom Ramblings

Of all the services out there that the cloud revolution may transform, voice is by far the one with the longest legacy history and widespread deployment.  The VoIP revolution has taken a decade already, and still isn’t anywhere near complete and the PSTN is still with us.  But with the arrival of new technologies like the cloud and NFV, the inherent advantages VoIP has always had the potential for are becoming much more accessible.  Alianza is one of the companies driving forward on this front, and with us today to tell us what the company’s cloud voice platform is all about is CEO Brian Beutler. [Read more →]

This morning saw the project launch announcement of another brand new Transatlantic cable system.  AquaComms and TE SubCom have kicked off the build of AEConnect, which they expect to be ready for service in December of this year. AEConnect will land out on Long Island in Shirley, NY and on the northwest coast of Ireland at Killala. The 5,400km route will then offer connectivity on to London via CeltixConnect across the Irish Sea.  [Read more →]

When Birch acquired Cbeyond last year, along with it came Cbeyond’s nascent efforts to add some significant metro fiber to its diet. It wasn’t clear at the time whether Birch would continue that effort, not having done so itself too often as it pursued its prolific CLEC roll-up strategy. Yet the metro fiber buildouts are not only still moving along, Birch has been actively promoting its progress and yesterday offered another update.  [Read more →]

XO Communications is stretching its network reach southward into Latin America with the help of the regional carrier Neutrona Networks. Through interconnections in Dallas and Miami, the deal givex XO strategic access for its customers in Mexico, the markets of Central America, and South America. [Read more →]

Yesterday, CenturyLink made yet another inorganic move to bolster its position in cloud services. They have acquired Orchestrate, whose specialty is Database-as-a-Service, or DBaaS, based on the popular NoSQL platform. [Read more →]

One of Google’s more fanciful bandwidth projects is nearing the runway. Project Loon, which depending on who you ask is named after the water bird with the eerie call or simply a crazy person, has made some significant strides forward.  [Read more →]

Over the weekend, that is the news that started buzzing. Staff lawyers at the Department of Justice are said to be making the case for suing to block Comcast’s purchase of TW Cable on the grounds that it would harm consumers.  [Read more →]

Two new job listings this past week on the Ramblings Jobs board from down in Texas to go with two others already on the books. [Read more →]

The weekend looks like Spring will arrive at last, at least here on the east coast. In the meantime, here are five items to catch up on before you go: [Read more →]

This Industry Viewpoint was contributed by Michael Scott, General Manager, Wolfe

“Our company completely runs off the Internet.”

High speed connectivity has been a must-have for enterprises for quite some time. After all, growing [Read more →]

Telstra’s acquisition of Pacnet is a done deal, as Australia’s incumbent closed the purchase last night.  And the first thing they did was announce the progressive retirement of the Pacnet brand.   [Read more →]

Equinix is always building something somewhere, and today they polished off two major buildout projects. [Read more →]

This week has seen quite a bit of contract news from the vendors large and small beyond the Nokia/ALU mega deal, here’s a quick survey: [Read more →]

The return of a familiar face, a refinancing, and two new products to peruse as we move over the hump of this mid-April week: [Read more →]

This week started with rumors out of Europe that Finland-based Nokia was talking about a buyout with Alcatel-Lucent, rumors that were soon confirmed by both companies. This morning they followed through and sealed the deal. [Read more →]

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

I was talking with my friend who is building a startup to help employers and employees to find one other in Germany. It is, for example, for a bus driver, car mechanic or nurse.  Is it anything new, there are thousands of recruiting services on the internet and everyone has a LinkedIn profile? [Read more →]

Here are a few interesting stories this week from the world of metro fiber: [Read more →]

The word this morning is that Finland-based Nokia is close to a blockbuster deal to buy the Franco-American giant Alcatel-Lucent. It’s not just an idle rumor, either, as the two companies have confirmed they are in advanced talks, and a deal would likely tip the scales at about $13B.  [Read more →]

There will probably soon be another bit of data to collect from Zayo’s extensive earnings release data, as the company has built a new dedicated team. They’re aiming at the live video business, taking broadcasts from sports venues and transporting them across fiber to studios and the like for processing. [Read more →]

Cyan kicked off the week with an interesting national/regional set of wins. They’ve been picked by the wholesale carrier group INDATEL for a 100G packet-optical deployment augmented by the company’s Blue Planet SDN software. [Read more →]

With its annual Superbowl services complete, Level 3’s Vyvx network finished off a bit of organic expansion this week. Level 3 has built fiber into an additional 29 professional sports venues across the USA. [Read more →]

Since closing its purchase of MegaPath’s wholesale division at the start of 2015, Global Capacity has been busy integrating its new network and central office reach with the rest of its offerings. This morning, they unveiled one of the most visible pieces of that project, taking their MPLS VPN and extending it across the combined One Marketplace footprint. [Read more →]

The hardest places to get fiber have always been the less populated areas of the country out in the Rocky Mountains and the High Plains.  Most providers shy away from such markets, but there are a few that specialize in taking on the harder projects.  Mammoth Networks, a wholesale subsidiary of Wyoming regional fiber builder Visionary Communications, has spent the last decade doing precisely that.  With us today to talk about Mammoth’s approach to hooking up the markets of the Mountain West as well as other topics like the role of municipal fiber is CEO Brian Worthen.  [Read more →]