Telecom Ramblings

Los Angeles’s Wilcon is bursting out of downtown and deep into the surrounding area with an acquisition that will shift the metro fiber landscape throughout southern California. With the help of their backers at Pamlico Capital, they’re buying Freedom Dark Fiber Networks according to an announcement that will hit the wires morning. [Read more →]

In Europe, two of the continent’s smaller incumbent operators are taking their pan-European networks and teaming up to take on the wholesale market.  KPN and Telekom Austria Group have announced a partnership that will combine the resources of  their complementary network footprints. [Read more →]

Some favorable windows in the credit markets are easier to spot than others, but when three US network operators look to squeeze through on the same day it’s not too difficult. Windstream, tw telecom, and Level 3 Communications each announced substantial balance sheet maneuvers today. [Read more →]

We’ve been seeing more and more trials of technology moving beyond the 100G mark this year, and today it was Verizon (NYSE:VZ, news, filings)‘s turn to test it out. They put Ciena gear to work in a field trial of a 200G link between New York and Boston.  [Read more →]

Higher churn held back euNetworks’ second quarter revenues, but Adjusted EBITDA continued to march ahead nonetheless.  Back in May they raised additional capital for expansion, and plan to make it count in organic growth moving forward – and in inorganic growth if the opportunity arises.  Given the growing rumbles of consolidation in Europe, that remains rather likely.  Here are the numbers in some context for euNetworks for Q2/2012: [Read more →]

Here’s a quick review of some metro network news from the end of last week that I didn’t get to: [Read more →]

Over on the Ramblings Jobs Board we have a new job listing this week from GeoResults, Inc. [Read more →]

A few weeks after exiting the shareholder relationship with KPN that had maintained the past year’s status quo, America Movil and Carlos Slim have made their move and bid for the whole of the Dutch incumbent. For the 70% they don’t already own, America Movil is offering €2.40 per share or some €7.2B, which adds a 20% or so premium onto the stock price as of yesterday’s close. [Read more →]

It’s time for a quick roundup of news from the colocation and cloud space: [Read more →]

Like tw telecom, Cogent Communications (NASDAQ:CCOI, news, filings) has been finding ways to return cash to shareholders, but unlike them they have been taking the dividend route and boosting the amount every quarter.  They continued on with that game plan for Q2 as they posted another quarter of forward progress.  Revenues and EPS were up sequentially but a bit below projections this time, while both margins and EBITDA were higher than anticipated.  Their numbers in some context: [Read more →]

Another strong quarter from TW Telecom (NASDAQ:TWTC, news, filings), as the company posted revenues above analyst estimates and earnings per share that were generally in the right place.  They added some 616 on-net buildings during the quarter, which along with the network upgrades they have been working on sent capex up above the $100M mark for the quarter.  Here are the rest of the numbers in some context: [Read more →]

Time for a quick roundup of international news from telecom and internet infrastructure: [Read more →]

While it may not have had the best start to August when it comes to WiFi over at Starbucks, AT&T’s wireline division has been busy. They have followed up this week with both a major move into the cloud and two federal contracts. [Read more →]

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

The Axis of Espionage has been busy, with its tentacles prying much further into our networks and our lives than earlier suspected. German newspaper Süddeutsche last week outed Verizon, BT and Vodafone as well as [Read more →]

A bit of fiber consolidation landed this morning in the deep south.  The wireless backhaul specialist PEG Bandwidth has announced the closed the acquisition of Contact Network, Inc. d/b/a InLine.  [Read more →]

Time for a quick roundup of regional and metro infrastructure news: a network upgrade for NoaNet, a product rollout by Lumos, and a birthday for Logix. [Read more →]

Two very different competitive fiber operators will report earnings later this week.  Both tw telecom and Cogent have scheduled their conference calls for Thursday morning, although usually that means tw telecom will have their release out the night before.  Both seem to have cracked the code of profitability in this space, although from very different approaches. [Read more →]

The Japanese network giant NTT Communications and the European-based private equity group AXA announced a potential deal this morning that would see NTT take a 90+% stake in Arkadin. The French-based Arkadin serves some 37K customers across Europe, the US, and Asia with audio, video, and web conferencing and related collaboration tools.  [Read more →]

During the quarters before the merger between Lightower Fiber Networks and Sidera Networks was announced, both companies had been looking to the south for expansion opportunities. In October Sidera had even begun an aggressive buildout of fiber southward deep into Virginia.  Today Lightower took those plans and ran with them, confirming and further expanding the company’s network expansion down the eastern seaboard.  [Read more →]

Last week there was a very interesting deal that I’ve been trying to get my head around. Starbucks has decided that its Wi-Fi hotspots needed an upgrade, and to get it the king of retail coffee is ditching AT&T and going for a service to be provided by none other than Google and Level 3. [Read more →]

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Stefan Bernbo, CEO and founder of Compuverde.  

Demand for storage has never been higher. A recent study by IDC projected that data center infrastructure will increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 53 percent between 2011 and 2016. The popularity of cloud computing has undeniably contributed to the surge in the call for additional [Read more →]

Time for a quick Friday roundup of news from the sector that I didn’t get to yet: a new service for MegaPath, a substantial metro fiber partnership for Southern Telecom, and new contracts for Interxion and Telx. [Read more →]

In the Pacific, Southern Cross says they have completed their 100G expansion project. They have installed Ciena’s coherent technology across their 30,000km system connecting the US west coast to Australia and New Zealand via Hawaii. [Read more →]