Telecom Ramblings

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

The key takeaway at Huawei’s analyst (and media) day last week is the company’s acknowledgement that the heady days of double-digit growth for its carrier network biz (representing 73% of total revenue) are over, and that its enterprise and consumer device groups will be the growth engines going forward. [Read more →]

Yep, the merger of T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS is complete, and the combined company started trading today under the ticker TMUS.  Deutsche Telekom still owns 74% of the company of course, but now has a bit of breathing room as its US division takes on the challenge of still being #4 in a tough business. [Read more →]

Fresh off yesterday’s announcement of the sale of its data business to GTT, Inteliquent (NASDAQ:IQNT, news, filings) posted stronger than expected Q1 earnings.  Revenues rose sequentially and were well above estimates, while earnings per share were basically inline.  EBITDA margins rose despite revising its revenue guidance downward due to the divesting of the data network, Inteliquent actually *raised* its EBITDA guidance materially. [Read more →]

Allied Fiber has formally launched the buildout of a key piece of the southeastern part of their planned national dark fiber build. The expansion will add about 600 route miles of dark fiber from Miami through Jacksonville and on to Valdosta, where it will hook up with [Read more →]

Thanks to a few helpful readers who chimed in last night since I obviously hadn’t dug up the news, we now know of another metro fiber deal currently pending. Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) is apparently in the process of buying the San Francisco Bay Area’s IP Networks Inc. (IPN). [Read more →]

Inteliquent has found itself a buyer for its Tier 1 IP and Ethernet network, and that buyer is none other than GTT.  GTT had already taken the step of building its own MPLS/IP network via the acquisitions of nLayer and PacketExchange in the past several years, moving forward from the ranks of resellers to join the network operators.  With this purchase, they have vaulted themselves all the way into the top 10 transit backbones worldwide – #5 actually according to the Renesys rankings at the end of 2012. [Read more →]

Here’s a quick rundown of Tuesday morning news from North America, with three expansions and a contract win. [Read more →]

Since Dish’s surprise competing bid for Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S, news, filings) emerged, just what Softbank’s response would be was unclear. Today, following their earnings call, Softbank made it clear they don’t feel the need to raise their bid to fend off Dish and are still looking [Read more →]

Windstream (NYSE:WIN, news, filings) earned itself a service black eye yesterday with a widespread outage of their voice network. Customers across their footprint lost access to at least long distance and toll free services for much of the afternoon, with enterprises that depend on inbound calls particularly hard hit. Windstream’s data networks and internet access remained up. [Read more →]

Here’s a quick rundown of news from across the Atlantic this Monday morning: [Read more →]

For a transaction that lacks an actual bid and whose rumors have largely been denied for years, this sure is starting to look like an auction. Late last week, it emerged that Verizon (NYSE:VZ, news, filings) may have hired advisers to put together a $100B bid for the 45% of Verizon Wireless still owned by Vodafone Group (NYSE:VOD, news, filings). But despite the fact that no actual bid is on the table, six major Vodafone investors are making their dissatisfaction with its supposed girth known. [Read more →]

When the superstorm Sandy hit New York City last autumn, telecom and internet services across the region had their disaster contingency plans put to the test.  But while the last mile took substantial damage where the storm surge and wind hit most directly, the internet itself and the fiber networks it runs came through it all pretty well.  One network operator that did especially well during the crisis was the enterprise-focused tw telecom, whose VP and General Manager for Manhattan Robert Bianco made some time for a quick Q&A with Telecom Ramblings: [Read more →]

We have another job listing this week from the midwestern-based fiber builder and operator Unite Private Networks to go with two others still active and one from AireSpring still on the books as well. [Read more →]

This is a guest post by Mia Henderson, Blogger at TexasElectricityProviders.com

The telecom industry shoulders an unspoken responsibility for keeping our modern society in working order. Granted its prevalence and necessity in nearly every corner of the earth, it’s somewhat surprising [Read more →]

Colt’s first quarter numbers suggested the European headwinds are anything but over. Revenues of €392.1M and EBITDA of €80.5M were both down sequentially, although still within the range the company has been stabilizing at as Voice revenues have churned off due to regulatory shifts.  But they’ve also been expanding on the fiber front lately. [Read more →]

The Southeastern fiber builder and operator FiberLight has completed another big piece of its Texas buildout project. Earlier this week the company introduced their new regional fiber network connecting the largest metro areas in the eastern part of the state, turning it up in just 73 days.  [Read more →]

This article was authored by Grace In Mono, and was originally posted on telecomasia.net.

Unless you live under a rock or in North Korea, you should know that social is the way to go. [Read more →]

Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) closed the books on the Crowe era with their first quarter 2013 numbers.  I wasn’t expecting much, and I got what I expected – although with differences in the details of course.  Revenues were rather weak, but costs and those apparent synergies were back on track keeping EBITDA in the expected range.  Here’s a tabular look with some context: [Read more →]

Infinera also posted its first quarter earnings yesterday, and like Akamai they made investors quite happy.  The company’s DTN-X entry into the 100G market hit the streets a bit less than a year ago after long anticipation, and three quarters later it is clearly driving things forward – with forward meaning increased guidance: [Read more →]

Akamai followed up a weak fourth quarter with a stronger than expected first quarter performance.  The cloud CDN provider checked in with revenues substantially above both guidance and estimates, and matched their forecast for non-GAAP earnings per share while the street was just looking for $0.46.  Here are their numbers in some context: [Read more →]

I suppose that’s what you get when you outperform so consistently.  The quarterly numbers reported today at Equinix (NASDAQ:EQIX, news, filings) were steady, right within their narrow guidance range for revenue and a little above for EBITDA, but came in light compared to those pesky analyst estimates and the stock is down sharply after hours in response.  Here’s a quick table of the relevant data with some context: [Read more →]

Several interesting items from the metro and regional fiber segment this week: [Read more →]

With two bids now for the company, Sprint’s Q1 numbers have less urgency than normal. With their LTE buildout underway and the Nextel shutdown this coming quarter as well as the whole Softbank/Dish/Clearwire brain teaser in the background, beating overall expectations demonstrates some real focus.  Sprint posted revenues of $8.79B and a loss per share of $0.21, both of which were better than expected. [Read more →]