Telecom Ramblings

Worries about security have been with us for a long time. For a long time the focus was hackers and viruses and worms, then in recent years it has been about the supposedly murky intentions of organized outsiders like the Chinese military complex and Huawei.  But those were on the fringes trying to get in past the good guys. But when the NSA and the US government became the bogeymen these past few months in the wake of the Snowden affair, the threat was suddently from the inside.  As a result, I think the game changed materially this fall and we have just begun to see the ramifications play out. [Read more →]

It’s time for a quick tour of the network news from around the world today: [Read more →]

Continuing with its expansion in the southeastern USA, Zayo yesterday announced new investments down in Miami. Zayo gained the Miami market from AboveNet, which itself had just moved into town relatively recently. [Read more →]

CenturyLink has struck again in the cloud/datacenter space, announcing this morning the acquisition of Tier 3. Tier 3 operates a public cloud platform which has now immediately morphed into the CenturyLink Cloud. [Read more →]

Here’s a quick look at some of the news from the past day and a half: [Read more →]

This morning T-Mobile USA announced that it has agreed to sell $2B in two sets of senior notes. The reason for the new capital isn’t exactly hard to divine, as the company has been saying it would raise money to buy spectrum for some time. [Read more →]

It has been more than a decade since we have seen one of the large European telecommunications companies invest substantially at the fiber level in the USA. But the drought is over, as Teliasonera International Carrier (TSIC) announced today a significant fiber-based expansion. [Read more →]

There have been lots of contract announcements for Level 3 in Latin America this year, but in a release today Level 3 has detailed its recent network expansion projects in the region as well. They’ve been investing to meet the growing demand for IP solutions in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Venezuela.  [Read more →]

This article was authored by Joseph Waring, and was originally posted on telecomasia.net.

The question on everyone’s mind at Alcatel-Lucent’s annual analyst conference last Thursday and Friday in New Jersey was will the Shift Plan, announced in June, be any different from past restructurings, which have all come up short since the merger back in 2006. [Read more →]

It’s been five years now since Allied Fiber and its CEO Hunter Newby started their campaign for a new kind of intercity dark fiber infrastructure company.  And this year they’ve started to turn that dream into actual, physical things like conduit, fiber, and collocation huts down in Florida as they build northward.  This past week they unveiled their first colo facility in West Palm Beach, see some pictures from the event in our gallery.  As they near Jacksonville, Hunter Newby joins us to talk about how the buildout is going, how the vision is evolving, and what comes next: [Read more →]

Here’s a few quick takes from this week’s other news in the colocation and cloud sector: [Read more →]

GTT posted higher revenues and EBITDA today, boosted by a full quarter’s contribution from the former Tinet network that it bought from Inteliquent earlier this year. In addition, the company suggested further acquisitions might be on the road ahead as part of an aggressive growth plan. [Read more →]

As the 800lb gorilla of the IT/Tech/Telecom vendor community, Cisco’s quarterly results are a key bellweather that the markets keep a close eye on to gauge the sector’s overall health. So when they miss big, traders dive for cover. [Read more →]

Another of Europe’s largest internet exchange specialists has launched its entry into the US market.  Following through on its promises earlier this autumn, Frankfurt’s DE-CIX today announced the opening of its New York City internet exchange, which is ready for service and accepting orders. [Read more →]

Somalia may still be a basket case, but it is now a connected basket case. Liquid Telecom says it has built the first fiber link into the country, crossing the border from Kenya and hooking into the fiber network of Hormuud Telecom Somalia (HORTEL). [Read more →]

Here’s a quick look at some news from the metro and regional fiber front: [Read more →]

It’s time for a quick roundup of some interesting news items: [Read more →]

The world of UC, cloud communications, and VoIP is definitely going through a phase at the moment, as we have another merger of note. The two Canadian-based international providers Mitel Networks and Aastra Technologies have announced a friendly merger.  [Read more →]

This article was authored by Joseph Waring, and was originally posted on telecomasia.net.

BT Global Services’ Kevin Taylor highlighted three key mega trends at BT’s Leadership Summit earlier this week: the power of the individual, instant globalization and the end of limitless resources. [Read more →]

The business VoIP segment has been quite an eventful place lately, at least relative to the years leading up to now. This morning we have another bit of consolidation, as 8×8 has announced a definitive agreement to buy the UK’s Voicenet Solutions.   [Read more →]

While there are a few stragglers out there who haven’t issued Q3 results, I have updated the competitive telecom trends plots to reflect data through the end of the third quarter.  One of the interesting items to note is the clear upward trend in relative valuations, i.e. the ratio of enterprise value to annualized EBITDA lately.  Here’s the chart: [Read more →]

According to reports, Deutsche Telekom has indeed agreed to buy GTS Central Europe, or at least most of it, giving it a deeper fiber footprint throughout eastern Europe. The price tag was €546M doesn’t include the company’s Slovakian assets, which will apparently remain [Read more →]

If it seems like just six weeks or so since the last Zayo earnings release, that’s because it has.  Nevertheless, Zayo has posted its fiscal Q1/2014 numbers, and like the other network operators this quarter they’ve been just pushing forward with steady organic growth, though with a bit of inorganic stuff in there too – this is Zayo of course.  I’ve rebuilt the table to account for the more granular service breakdown over the past three quarters: [Read more →]