Telecom Ramblings

Longtime readers may have noticed that there are some hot new topics/buzzwords I don’t seem to favor, and on top of that list in my own mind are M2M and the ‘Internet of Things’.  But Mike Manos over on LooseBolts has a piece out today that finally resonated with me. It’s not that these topics aren’t real opportunities and new directions, it’s that the packaging is so wonkish.  [Read more →]

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Jack McCarthy, the content manager at ShoreTel

As organizations become increasingly mobile, many have questioned the viability of using a voice over IP phone system as a long-term solution. While companies may think that the technology is antiquated in the emerging mobile landscape, VoIP offers benefits comparable to mobile phones, making it a valuable business asset. [Read more →]

November took up where October left off, and we now have seven listings on the Ramblings Jobs Board with a new posting from Southern Telecom. [Read more →]

So despite the NSA scandal and the potential regulatory hassle it may cause them, today’s rumor is once again that AT&T really is taking a serious look at bidding for the rest of Vodafone.   What do you think, would this a smart move? [Read more →]

Halloween is over and it’s time for a quick Friday wrap-up of news I didn’t get to from this week: [Read more →]

According to the Wall Street Journal yesterday, European officials are throwing some serious cold water on AT&T’s possible plans to expand inorganically into Europe. The main thrust of the opposition relates to the continuing rumors of a bid for Vodafone, but the problem could be a more general one. [Read more →]

In a flurry of activity, Virginia-based Lumos Networks released their earnings and provided updates on their ongoing projects in Virginia and Pennsylvania. Since splitting off from nTelos two years ago, Lumos has been moving aggressively to both make better use of the fiber they have and to build out into new adjacent markets. [Read more →]

Yesterday an interesting cloud M&A hit the wires, as Internap Network Services (NASDAQ:INAP, news, filings) announced plans to acquire iWeb. It’s Internap’s first substantial inorganic move since the Voxel deal almost two years ago, and will boost their ambitions to take on a bigger piece of the global infrastructure-as-a-service market. [Read more →]

As promised, Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) posted its third quarter earnings report this morning.  And while they were still in the red, there were some promising signs this quarter that the winds are shifting in their direction at last.  Enterprise revenue growth ticked upward, wholesale saw some stabilization, and cost savings continued to trickle in.  Here is a quick table of their numbers in some context: [Read more →]

Over in Europe, euNetworks has stretched its fiber reach to the north and east. The independent pan-European operator has announced the addition of a fiber route up to Stockholm to its inventory, taking its low latency capabilities to the Scandanavian financial center down another notch. They have also established a beachhead in Moscow. [Read more →]

Here’s a quick roundup of all things data from the first half of the week that is worth a quick look: [Read more →]

Tomorrow we will get our monthly window into how Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) is doing with their Q3 report.  We started off the year with James Crowe stepping down, after which Jeff Storey stepped up to the CEO role and has been putting his stamp on things as the company continues to seek higher growth rates for its core network services.  I continue to hear rumbles out there of good things on the horizon in enterprise sales, but [Read more →]

A year after getting a new CEO and refocusing its business, Pacnet is clearly on offense again. Along with their datacenter moves on the Chinese mainland, today they introduced 100G wavelength services between East Asia and the US West Coast. [Read more →]

If there were any doubts about the intentions of the Japanese giant NTT Communications in the North American cloud services market, their moves today should go a long way to dispelling them. NTT announced two purchases today, buying 80% of RagingWire Data Centers and all of the cloud networking operator Virtela. [Read more →]

This article was authored by Don Sambandaraksa, and was originally posted on telecomasia.net.

Privacy does sell. Or at least, it has received a breath of fresh air in the form of the wake-up call from Edward Snowden’s leaks. [Read more →]

It has been a busy month on the Ramblings Jobs Board, where we now have six positions listed including a new one from Zayo this past week: [Read more →]

There’s something about bandwidth in space that simultaneously evokes the responses ‘Oh Cool’ and ‘That sounds so primitive’.  That’s true for me with the report on various news sources this week about an actual 622Mbps broadband connection between the Earth and the Moon, or more precisely to the Lunar and Atmospheric Dust Environment Explorer probe that is currently orbiting it. [Read more →]

It’s time for a Friday roundup from the network world: [Read more →]

The regional colo and cloud provider ViaWest is doubling down on its infrastructure in Colorado. They have announced a new 210,000 square facility to be ready for business in the first quarter of 2014.

[Read more →]

Over in the CDN/Cloud segment, Akamai also had a good third quarter but sees a dark cloud or two ahead in Q4 that will dampen any celebrations.  Revenues were higher than both analyst estimates and the company’s guidance, as were their non-GAAP earnings per share.   Here are their numbers in some context: [Read more →]

Infinera (NASDAQ:INFN, news, filings) posted another strong quarter yesterday, again besting expectations as its sales of the new DTN-X platform continue to drive things forward.  Revenues were in the upper half of guidance and a bit above expectations, while earnings per share of $0.10 were above the guided range and six cents ahead of composite analyst estimates.  However forward guidance was more conservative than the street may have hoped: [Read more →]

After a rare faltering step last quarter, Equinix turned in a third quarter earnings report that puts them back on their growth track.  Revenues came in just a hair above the midpoint of guidance and slightly above analyst projections, while diluted earnings per share were $0.14 above the street’s estimates.  Here’s a quick table of their results in some context: [Read more →]

Amazon is the undeniable king of the the first public cloud era, and therefore it’s into their infrastructure where the biggest demand for cloud connectivity has been and continues to be. And so today we have three major infrastructure providers announcing expanded support for AWS Direct Connect, which itself has been around for two years already. [Read more →]