In what could be a key partnership for both the CDN and Vyvx sides of its content business, Level 3 announced today that it is expanding its video cloud services into China. They are working with China Telecom to both gain and give access to the world’s largest market. [Read more →]
Poll: What’s Your Opinion of the Level 3/tw telecom Deal?
June 18th, 2014
In the two days since Level 3 announced an agreement to buy tw telecom, we’ve had time to develop some first impressions of the deal. Readers of this site know more about either or both companies than just about any audience out there, so what do you think? Pick two adjectives: [Read more →]
Network Bytes: Fibertech, Allied Fiber, Comcast, Masergy
June 18th, 2014
Here’s a set of quick-takes from network operators around the US this week, just to make sure they don’t get completely swamped by the Level 3/tw telecom news. [Read more →]
Pacnet Is For Sale Again, Buyers?
June 17th, 2014

Reports including this one from Bloomberg have Pacnet up for sale with a nominal $1B price tag. It’s not the first time that the company’s private equity owners have sought an exit of course. The last time there were public rumors was when PT Telkom’s rumored bid fell through just before former CEO Bill Barney got sacked. But that’s in the past, and Carl Grivner has been running things for a couple years now. So who might do the buying? [Read more →]
Cyan Makes Its Play to Integrate Cloud, WAN, and NFV
June 17th, 2014
In a challenge to the established order, Cyan has introduced what it bills as the first orchestration application spanning WAN, cloud, and NFV. Building on their Blue Planet platform, they hope to enable carrier customers to streamline new product development and management. [Read more →]
Int’l Bytes: Xtera, Epsilon, KDDI, IP-Only, Interoute, Colt
June 17th, 2014
As we continue to digest the LVLT/TWTC deal and its implications in the US market, here’s a quick roundup of other news items in recent days from around the world: [Read more →]
NTT Moves Deeper Into Southeast Asia
June 17th, 2014

NTT Communications is working its infrastructure way deeper into the markets of southeast Asia. Of course they’ve been making similar moves globally for some time, especially in continental Europe. But in this part of the world there has been perhaps some historical suspicion to overcome, but lately Chinese moves in the South China Sea have ruffled more than a few feathers and perhaps created [Read more →]
The Level3/TWTC Deal Reverberates Around the Sector
June 16th, 2014
The proposed combination of Level 3 and tw telecom is going to change a lot of the current rules of the road in competitive infrastructure. Here are a few thoughts as to some repercussions, feel free to add your own below in the comments: [Read more →]
Level 3 Drops the Big One, Will Buy tw telecom
June 16th, 2014
When the rumors started late last week, I must say I didn’t believe them. But this time the big one turned out to be real. Level 3 Communications has this morning announced a deal to acquire tw telecom. [Read more →]
Is Peering Transparency Catching On?
June 16th, 2014
It’s almost too good to be true from my point of view. News has been coming out of the FCC that has Tom Wheeler & crew looking at peering. While it’s not being treated directly as a part of the net neutrality debate, he has called them ‘cousins’ which is a good start. [Read more →]
Limelight Gets a Bid From the Blue
June 15th, 2014
On Friday, the Phoenix Business Journal was handed an exclusive PR with some fascinating M&A news. Limelight Networks has a received a bid for the company. Then over the weekend, Limelight threw some cold water on the idea but probably not enough to quench it outright just yet. [Read more →]
Ramblings Jobs: A Baker’s Dozen From Lightower
June 14th, 2014
This week the Ramblings’ Jobs Board saw its listings surge to a historical high of 16, with the help of a cool baker’s dozen from Lightower. [Read more →]
Friday Bytes: Transbeam, UPN, Integra, Equinix
June 13th, 2014
TGIF, but before you go here’s a set of quick takes on a few other interesting items from this week: [Read more →]
Desktop as a Service: The Workspace of the Future Is Here
June 13th, 2014

This Industry Viewpoint was contributed by AVANT Communications’ Niko O’Hara.
Service providers today offer a variety of cloud services – everything from Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) to Hosted VoIP (or UCaaS) – but the area that’s sparking the most interest here at AVANT Communications has to be Desktop as a Service. Over the past year, several large [Read more →]
Zayo Flexes Euro Muscles, Wins Expanded TalkTalk Deal
June 12th, 2014
Zayo has picked up a significant contract expansion with the UK’s TalkTalk. Zayo will be providing 10G waves in the UK and across Europe, a boost of IP transit speeds to 50G, and 10G transatlantic circuits, as well as seven new dark fiber circuits for satisfying future demand. [Read more →]
VoIP Roundup: OSN, Bandwidth, MegaPath, 8×8
June 12th, 2014
Here’s a few quick takes on news from the VoIP and UC world this week: [Read more →]
The Zettabyte Awaits, Time to Prepare For the Yottabyte?
June 12th, 2014
When I first started this website, the so called ‘exaflood’ was looming on the horizon with all sorts of dire but ultimately silly predictions. According to Cisco, in a few short years the ‘exaflood’ era will give way to what we thankfully aren’t calling the ‘zettaflood’, at least yet. [Read more →]
Fiber Bytes: SummitIG, tw telecom, Integra, Lightower, FiberLight
June 11th, 2014
In this roundup, an interconnection, some new franchise rights, two state contract vehicles, and an update from rural Texas. [Read more →]
Int’l Fiber M&A: Cinven Buys GNFT
June 11th, 2014

The European private equity group Cinven has made a pretty big move into the fiber business with agreeing to the purchase of GNFT, the fiber arm of Gas Natural Fenosa. For a pricetag of approximately $680M, they will get a substantial foothold in the internet infrastructure markets in Spain and parts of of Latin America. Now the question is, what will they do with it? [Read more →]
Int’l Bytes: Level 3, Sparkle, XConnect, NTT, China Mobile
June 10th, 2014
It’s time for a quick roundup of news from around the globe: [Read more →]
Netflix Backs Off, But Its Message Was Delivered
June 10th, 2014
After having its service blame Verizon’s crowded network for streaming difficulties for a few weeks, Netflix is now backing off. Verizon had sent them a cease and desist letter, and had been protesting loudly. But I think that’s precisely what this was all about. [Read more →]
The Silver Linings Left By the NSA
June 9th, 2014
As our friendly global internet giants busy themselves with closing the barn door after the horse got out, the good news is that they’re closing the barn door. Over the weekend, the New York Times had an article detailing just how hard the industry has started working to keep out the spies, foreign and domestic. It’s just rather sad that it took so long and that we only believed it necessary when we realized the enemy could be us. [Read more →]
Without SDN, NFV will be obsolete in ten years: ONF
June 9th, 2014
This article was authored by John C. Tanner, and was originally posted on telecomasia.net.
You can have SDN without NFV, but you can’t have NFV without SDN – not if you want greater service agility and new revenue streams, said the head of the Open Networking Foundation. [Read more →]