Telecom Ramblings

With the government shutdown showdown finally behind us, all we needed is a bit of good news to wipe away a bit of the gloom. Verizon did its part, kicking off earning season with a better than expected quarter despite the distracting overhang of the pending Vodafone deal. [Read more →]

So much for the KPN buyout. América Móvil and Carlos Slim have decided to take their ball and go home rather than give in to the demands of the Dutch foundation standing in the way of its bid. [Read more →]

Last week Canadian regulators rejected the proposed purchase of Allstream by Accelero, a vehicle of the Egyptian tycoon Naguib Sawiris on national security grounds. When Verizon looked into entering the market there, they were faced with immediate and vocal objections before backing off after the Vodafone deal. So despite the supposed relaxation of foreign ownership requirements in the Great White North last year, the question now is [Read more →]

On tap today: new data center in the Midwest, an NNI with PCCW, bundling LTE for businesses, and the return of Bill LaPerch to the fiber business. [Read more →]

It’s a busy Tuesday for the vendors.  Juniper Networks (NASDAQ:JNPR, news, filings) today unveiled an upgrade to its MX router portfolio. The MX Series 3D Universal Edge Router now has additional capacity, subscriber bandwidth, and service performance via new [Read more →]

Here are a series of quick-takes on news from the international front: [Read more →]

We don’t get enough news about government money that is spent well, so today’s news from Mid-Atlantic Broadband is quite welcome. MBC has finished up its BTOP buildout program, coming in on time and under budget. [Read more →]

Carriers around the world have been rolling out 100G in their core networks and even in the metro. But how many enterprises need a dedicated 100Gbps connection? Well, as of today CenturyLink has found at least one: DigitalGlobe. [Read more →]

A few years ago, there was a bit of a cold war going on between Netflix and the larger cable MSOs that flared up with that interconnection dispute between Level 3 and Comcast. That particular argument was resolved publicly a few months back, but now reports over the weekend have Netflix in negotiations with cable MSOs of a very different sort that suggests a rapidly shifting terrain. [Read more →]

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

Telecom operators are getting hit from all sides. Voice revenue has been in steady decline for years. But over the past 18 months SMS income has been sliding rapidly (Ovum says telcos will lose $32 billion this year to the social messaging players) and now the word is [Read more →]

Wyoming-based Mammoth Networks is stretching its reach into the Pacific Northwest. They’ve established an NNI with Wave Broadband up in Seattle, giving them more options in Washington, Oregon and California while also helping Wave reach out beyond its own footprint. [Read more →]

We have three new job listings on the Ramblings Jobs board this week, two from Lightower on the Northeast corridor and another from Logix Communications down in Texas and Oklahoma. [Read more →]

Here’s a set of Friday quick-takes on other news from this week that I didn’t get to at the time. [Read more →]

Ok, so the week started off with a bang in the competitive fiber world as Time Warner Cable emerged as the winning buyer for DukeNet’s Carolinas footprint. The dust has settled a bit, so here’s a quick look at a few thoughts. [Read more →]

We seem to get a PR for every city that gets LTE, but we don’t often get data points on the fiber buildouts by incumbent providers. This morning though AT&T did offer up the latter, as the telecommunications giant announced its progress bringing fiber to buildings down in Florida. [Read more →]

CenturyLink (NYSE:CTL, news, filings) says it is expanding the Gigabit fiber pilot it began in Nebraska out into Nevada. They plan to bring FTTH technology to selected neighborhoods in Las Vegas starting this fall. [Read more →]

The consumer VoIP protagonist of the last decade is back in the headlines with a significant M&A and a bid to regain some of its growth mojo. Vonage (NYSE:VG, news, filings) has announced an agreement to acquire Vocalocity for $130M.  [Read more →]

As the US contemplates its government’s navel, all the action in internet infrastructure today seems to be over in Europe.  There we have the acquisition of a key internet hub in Germany by none other than Equinix.  The Californian-based data center powerhouse is buying Kleyer 90 in Frankfurt. [Read more →]

Well, technically they never went away of course. But following the purchase of the VTL WaveNet assets in May, Digiweb has relaunched the business with the addition of an Irish fiber network to its reach. [Read more →]

Time for a quick roundup of news from the European theater, of which there has been a bunch already this week: [Read more →]

Here are several tidbits from regional network operators around the US this week that are worth a quick look: [Read more →]

Back at the start of summer, Alcatel-Lucent and its new CEO Michel Combes painted a few broad strokes of the recovery landscape the company was aiming for, calling it The Shift Plan. Today’s further strokes were of a more somber variety, as they announced the intention to slim down to the tune of 10,000 jobs worldwide over the next two years.  [Read more →]