Telecom Ramblings

One of the places that the impact of 100G technology is most eagerly awaited is under the Atlantic Ocean, where no new cable system has yet been turned up for a decade and 40G is now already carrying the load in some cases. But that has meant that 100G would first need to be able to handle longer distances (6,000+km) on older fiber, and today TE SubCom demonstrated it’s ready to do just that. [Read more →]

For 2013, the Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) story will come down to growth, and more specifically what rate of enterprise growth they can build up to. So the two enterprise contracts they’ve announced this week will hopefully be the start of a steady stream of similar deals. [Read more →]

In Europe Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:ALU, news, filings) has been under siege for a while now, looking to sell assets and cut costs to relieve some of the financial pressure they have been under from the twin pillars of the European economy and the invasion of Huawei. But today they got some very welcome relief from the subcontinent, of the billion dollar contract variety. [Read more →]

According to an article by Kelly Teal over at Channel Partners Online, Earthlink laid off 495 employees last week. That’s not a minor number of course, as according to its earnings release the company ended Q3 with 3,264 employees and this RIF would therefore be about a 15% haircut. [Read more →]

Here’s a quick review of some colo and cloud news out already this week from Cologix, Amazon, Digital Realty, Terremark, and Interoute: [Read more →]

Last week’s annual reader poll examining which network operators are likely to get bought in 2013 was a lot less definitive than the its companion ranking the likely buyers the prior week. Just one company took more than 10% of votes, and there was a photo-finish for second with a large pack close behind them. Interestingly, only one of my own picks made the top 5. [Read more →]

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

Ovum reported on Jan 3 that “mobile broadband presents the single largest opportunity for telcos to gain back revenue.” It expects the sector to grow 19% annually until 2016. [Read more →]

The first contract PR of 2013 for Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) was a high profile one over in Europe. The NATO Communications and Information Agency has brought them in to install and maintain an IPVPN for the NATO-Russia Council Cooperative Airspace Initiative, a.k.a. the NRC CAI. [Read more →]

Before the week gets started, let’s catch up a bit on the items last week that I didn’t get to from Zayo Group, XO Communications, Wave Broadband, and DQE Comunications : [Read more →]

Ok, last week we looked at who will be 2013’s buyers, now it’s time for the other end of the sword for this Friday’s poll.  Of US-based network operators, which are most likely to get bought out in 2013?  Again, you can pick up to three: [Read more →]

After that trip through Chapter 11 two years ago they’re still a bit behind their fellows, but FairPoint Communications (news, filings) has been working hard to catch up on multiple fronts. Yesterday they detailed their progress and future plans for building out Fiber-to-the-Tower to support growing wireless data demands, following up on their planned investments they discussed a year and a half ago. [Read more →]

Time for a quick look overseas, with moves by CDNetworks and Equinix in Japan, Seaborn in the Atlantic, and Interoute in the Alps. [Read more →]

Even before it went public many in the industry have watched magicJack and its over the top marketing campaigns with suspicion, and since the reverse merger with Vocaltec the public markets have remained doubtful.  Yesterday one bear, Copperfield Research, finally declared open war and took its case against the company public.  They aren’t pulling any punches and the stock took a tumble yesterday in response.  [Read more →]

Lots of varied news from the colo and cloud sector this week, here’s a quick look at items from CoreSite, IO, Phoenix NAP, Viawest, and Digital Realty: [Read more →]

The Southeastern metro fiber builder and operator FiberLight has been busy working on a large Texas expansion for a year now, but this week the project more than doubled in scope.  With additional anchor tenants in place, FiberLight announced Monday that it has added 4,500 regional and metro route miles of dark fiber to its buildout plans, bringing the total planned footprint to above 9,000 route miles in Texas alone. [Read more →]

Multiple reports out of Europe have the likes of FT, DT, Telecom Italia, and Telefonica sitting down to discuss the pooling of their network infrastructure. EU regulators are said to be behind the concept generally, aiming to shift from many markets still so fractured by national boundaries into a more unified whole that would be more healthy overall. [Read more →]

I’ve been puzzling over what Dish’s endgame here is with its surprise competing bid for clwr, and I think the murky waters are starting to clarify, if by no other means than the process of elimination. [Read more →]

In a move that I did not expect, DISH has apparently made a competing bid for clwr. Yep, Clearwire says it has received an ‘unsolicited, non-binding proposal from DISH’ for $3.30 per share, attempting to take the prize away from Softbank/Sprint whose bid of $2.97 now stands in question. There are also options for a spectrum purchase and build financing. [Read more →]

Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX, news, filings) offered an update on the content delivery network it started work on last year, which goes by the name “OpenConnect”. It places caches deep within last mile networks in an effort to give them better control over both quality and traffic management in order to defuse some of the usual OTT friction. They seem to be making substantial progress in winning over last mile operators, and today claimed Cablevision as a new convert. [Read more →]

It looks as if the long discussed buyout of Vodafone’s 45% minority stake in Verizon Wireless may be back on the front burner. Yesterday, CEO Lowell McAdam went as far as to tell the Wall Street Journal that such a deal is currently “feasible” and that they would still love to own the whole business. He also said that Verizon’s growing wireline strength was making it easier to put together such a deal. [Read more →]

Here’s a quick look at three interesing news items from the vendors, including a new product from MRV, a 100G upgrade by NSN, and a submarine cable launch by Huawei. [Read more →]

Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) gained another network operator’s support for the bit-mile peering concept, announcing a new agreement with xo this morning.  The long-term, settlement-free pact fits with the peering paradigm that Level 3 has been promoting while giving XO the [Read more →]

Several next-generation fiber operators have made the transition to positive earnings per share over the past few years (AboveNet, tw telecom, and Cogent), but none had further to go to achieve it than Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings).  But this year the numbers say that at long last it is likely Level 3’s turn to definitively end its long run of red ink. [Read more →]