Telecom Ramblings

This morning, Netflix is taking its OTT video into perhaps the most hostile territory yet: France. But what we aren’t yet seeing is any of the public spats about interconnection that have marked the content/eyeball divide in the US for much of this year. [Read more →]

After a slow Labor Day stretch, we have a new job listing on the Ramblings Jobs board this weekend. [Read more →]

For this fall Friday let’s see what’s going on with the vendors: [Read more →]

So T-Mobile’s latest campaign is to take better advantage of WiFi, quickly hopping on the bandwagon with the new iPhone’s capabilities in the unapologetically aggressive, quick-footed manner that T-Mobile has specialized in since John Legere took over. All I can say is that it’s about time somebody did. [Read more →]

Here are a few quick-takes on news from the metro and regional fiber space: [Read more →]

Zayo picked up a high profile video transport contract today in the sports vertical. They are teaming up with the National Basketball Association for the transport of live broadcast and other video feeds for all NBA games in the upcoming 2014-2015 season. [Read more →]

The latest European IX foray into North America is by AMS-IX, which this morning announced plans to expand to the west coast. The Amsterdam-based internet exchange company has opened a new PoP at Digital Realty’s 365 Main Street facility in San Francisco. They’ll be calling it AMS-IX Bay Area, and will be seeking to replicate their successful model over in Amsterdam where they see nearly 3Tbps of throughput. [Read more →]

Here’s a quick look at some of the news from the colo business from the first part of this week: [Read more →]

The New York metro area got itself a new alternative metro connectivity provider today. ZenFi Networks has launched, headed by the former founder and CEO of the NYC metro fiber specialist Lexent Metro Connect, Ray La Chance. [Read more →]

The communications operator MetTel announced a key acquisition this morning, joining what has been a busy week already on the inorganic front.  They’ll be purchasing Thrive Networks, the IT solutions arm of the office retail giant Staples. [Read more →]

Integra Telecom announced a leadership change yesterday, bringing in Robert Guth as interim CEO and President. Guth will hold down the position while the company looks for a more permanent replacement. [Read more →]

There’s big news in the managed connectivity business today, as Global Capacity has made a big inorganic move. They’ve announced plans to acquire of the Network Services business unit of MegaPath.  [Read more →]

2014 has been filled with news of large-scale strategic and financial transactions such as Level 3’s $7 billion acquisition of tw telecom and Zayo’s impending IPO, but a small deal that almost flew beneath the radar has definitely piqued our interest. We sat down with Bank Street Group’s James Henry (JHH), Richard Lukaj (RSL) and Peter Beckett (JPB) to discuss Crown Castle’s acquisition of 24/7 Mid-Atlantic Network and the implications of that transaction for the bandwidth infrastructure sector. [Read more →]

In a transaction that has been submitted to the Maryland Public Service Commission but which doesn’t seem to have made it into the news yet, a national tower company is making a relatively small but very interesting move into the fiber business. Crown Castle has apparently agreed to purchase 24/7 Mid-Atlantic Network. [Read more →]

Seaborn Networks took another big step toward making its US-Brazil submarine cable system plans into reality by bringing on a big name as a foundational customer. None other than Microsoft has entered into an agreement for network capacity on Seabras-1. [Read more →]

In the interconnection-focused segment of the data center space, Cologix has been very acquisitive since its creation a few years back.  Yesterday they struck again with their ninth purchase and their second in Florida, closing the purchase of Colo5. [Read more →]

Colorado-based tw telecom is filling in one of the last, biggest holes in its national metro fiber coverage. Boston will be their first market in New England, as part of the market expansion they announced in the fourth quarter of last year.  Meanwhile, their intended acquirer, Level 3 is expanding down in Georgia. [Read more →]

Ciena hit its numbers easily enough this morning, but the market doesn’t seem to like its guidance for the company’s fiscal Q4.  They’ve had a series of strong reports, I suppose it was inevitable that the bar would be raised too high.  Here is a quick summary in some context: [Read more →]

Several interesting metro fiber items to look at: [Read more →]

Here’s a quick rundown of some international networking and data center news: [Read more →]

After getting an unsolicited offer last week, Alteva this morning turned it down and announced it has adopted a shareholders’ rights plan in its own defense. The hosted unified communications company has been restructuring, and recently made interim CEO Brian Kelley’s job permanent. Not everyone is happy with how it is going however. [Read more →]

For the US, Labor Day weekend is now past and the fall has unofficially begun. Here’s a quick look at some news this shortened week is getting started with: [Read more →]

Last month’s bid for T-Mobile by the French provider Iliad and its billionaire owner Xavier Niel surprised just about everyone. But after the initial shock wore off, nobody took it too seriously. Yet by now we should know that when one of the industry’s icons gets started on the hunt, the first shot is just the beginning. [Read more →]