Telecom Ramblings

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 →]

Time for a quick Friday roundup of news from the data center and cloud space: [Read more →]

Cogent Communications issued its Q3 earnings report this morning, following through with yet another dividend boost and another step forward on the growth front.  Here are their Q3 numbers in some context: [Read more →]

Over on the European earnings front, euNetworks saw the diverging trends from the second quarter continue on through the third as they shifted into a higher capex gear with their recently announced network expansion projects.  EBITDA rose even as revenue fell, and both EBITDA margins and on-net buildings passed key milestones despite continued headwinds of churn: [Read more →]

It’s been nearly seven years since they acquired the one-time Digital Island assets from Savvis back in 2006 for $135M, but Level 3’s content delivery network is definitely coming of age. Today they announced a broad global footprint expansion, adding more than two dozen nodes across Europe, Asia, Middle East, Africa and Latin America. [Read more →]

Along with their usual very solid but very predictable earnings report for Q3 they released last night, tw telecom tossed in a major new network expansion to shake things up.  The company already boasts the most on-net buildings for a competitive network operator and maintained its torrid pace to hit 20,000 of them by the end of the year.  But in a much less common expansion move for tw telecom, they making moves into five brand new markets as well as making major new investments in 27 of their existing ones. [Read more →]

Another European-style interconnection exchange has launched in the USA.  Amsterdam’s AMS-IX announced this morning that it is now accepting orders for its new AMS-IX New York exchange, which is one of several Open-IX initiatives taking the peering and interconnection market by storm. [Read more →]

As part of its Q3 report today, Cbeyond says it has formed a strategy committee that will evaluate both ways to accelerate its transformation and possible strategic alternatives. The possible alternatives could include M&A as either a buyer or seller and other strategic arrangements. [Read more →]

Time for a quick mid-week roundup of news from regional and metro network operators around the USA: [Read more →]