Telecom Ramblings

We haven’t had a Friday poll since the start of the year, an oversight that is easily corrected.  Let’s step back from specifics and see what the general impression we all have as participants in this industry about the proposed purchase of XO Communications by Verizon might be: [Read more →]

Here’s a quick rundown of some of the earnings news from this week among network operators: [Read more →]

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Max Silber, Vice President of Mobility at MetTel

As we celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the 1996 Telecommunications Act last week, the main discussions centered on what it got right and what it got wrong. There’s no denying the impact the act had on the telecommunications industry as a whole, from centralizing the landscape to enabling the [Read more →]

Four network updates from around the world that are worth a quick look: [Read more →]

In its first move south of the Alps, this morning euNetworks to add some dark fiber to its network.  The company is investing in two diverse longhaul routes taking them to the Marseilles in southern France as well as points in between. [Read more →]

According to reliable sources, Crown Castle has made another fiber acquisition, albeit a relatively small one. They have apparently acquired the dark fiber assets of Last Mile Solutions up in Massachusetts. [Read more →]

Yes, there are a few things other than the Verizon/XO deal going on out there.  For this midweek-update, three NFV-related items, one M&A, and a colo deal: [Read more →]

Two independents have formed an infrastructure alliance in the Atlantic and western Europe. Pan-European fiber operator euNetworks and the new translatlantic entrant Aqua Comms have announced a strategic commercial partnership. [Read more →]

The dust from the announcement of the Verizon/XO deal has had a day or so to settle now.  Let’s ramble on a bit about a few unanswered questions, both from the past and for the future. [Read more →]

Verizon’s heavy hand landed on the US communications M&A landscape today.  The wild rumors turned out to be mostly true, although with a twist.  The incumbent and wireless giant has signed an agreement to purchase XO Communications’ fiber-optic business. [Read more →]

Level 3 Communications said this morning that it has further expanded its managed security capabilities in Latin America.  They have now opened a DDoS scrubbing center in the Brazilian internet hub of São Paulo.   [Read more →]

It isn’t just the big telecommunications carriers that are seeing the future in other people’s clouds, its their own vendors too.  Ericsson today unveiled plans to ally with Amazon’s AWS as part of the next generation of the backoffice and operations support it supplies to carriers worldwide. [Read more →]

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

When we think of the Internet of Things, we think of sensors, cars, air-conditioners, TV sets, silly things, creepy things and more. But when you step back and look at the broader picture, the IoT adds up to a lot more than just a bunch of stuff connected to the internet and each other. [Read more →]

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Jim Kennedy, Founder and CEO of the Network Support Company

Disaster recovery is not a new topic, but, as a service provider, ensuring that your clients have the right process and plan is more important than ever. With the very real possibilities of cyber security breaches and unexpected natural disasters affecting most businesses regardless of location, size or product, data backup and recovery is a global issue. It’s up to service providers to [Read more →]

TGIF.  Here’s a quick recap of some other news from this week that I didn’t quite get to in any detail: [Read more →]

When it comes to the UK, for a very long time the only infrastructure market that mattered to much of the industry was the London metro area.  Investments in metro fiber in other markets around the country rarely moved the needle, and attention tended to focus on the behavior of the incumbent.  CityFibre is one of the young operators out there challenging that status quo, and now has six ‘Gigabit City’ build-out projects and a host of other expansions underway.  Late last year they also made an inorganic move that brought the KCOM network assets into the fold. With us today to talk about CityFibre’s origins, growth, and plans for the future is CEO Greg Mesch. [Read more →]

Finishing off a year of cost savings, streamlining, and retrenching, EarthLink posted its Q4 and full year 2015 numbers yesterday after the market closed.  Revenues of $260.2M and and loss per share of $0.12 were both pretty much where analysts thought they’d be.  Adjusted EBITDA and margin fell sequentially, but remained well above 2014 levels despite the reduced revenue base. [Read more →]

New York City now has another dark fiber provider. Cleareon Fiber Networks has formally launched, rebranding itself from its stealth name of Phoenix Fiber Network as it takes its dense metro fiber footprint to the market. [Read more →]

Here’s a quick midweek potpourri of infrastructure news, from dark fiber to IP transit to edge colo to CDN to IoT: [Read more →]

Here’s a quick look at some news to catch up on from the metro: [Read more →]

Consolidation in the European telecommunications marketplace rolled into the Netherlands today.  After talking about asset swaps and such on and off for many quarters, Vodafone and Liberty Global have finally followed through somewhere.  The two companies have announced an agreement to combine their Dutch operations in a new joint venture that will look to take on the incumbent, KPN. [Read more →]

Today we’re going to dig down into layer 1, the transport layer that underlies the entire sector and actually carries all those bits from place to place around the world.   XKL is out to reinvent the way operators and enterprises use and implement dense wavelength division multiplexing in their networks. With us today to tell us how XKL approaches the optical transport market and what they are seeing in the marketplace going forward is Chad Lamb, Director of Engineering at XKL. [Read more →]

In the US, it’s President’s Day and many are off.  But internationally, some interesting items are out there already: [Read more →]