Telecom Ramblings

This article was authored by John C. Tanner, and was originally posted on telecomasia.net.

The State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC) is building a smart-grid project using passive optical networking (PON) technology, which could not only help it deliver electricity more efficiently across the country, but also turn it into China’s next broadband service provider. [Read more →]

Time for a quick review of news from this week from the metro front, both fiber and managed services: [Read more →]

América Móvil AMX-1 submarine cable system took another few steps toward reality yesterday. The Latin American giant and Alcatel-Lucent are preparing to get the new 100G system ready for commercial service by the end of 2013. They just got regulatory approval from Mexico a few months back. [Read more →]

This week has seen a milestone in the development of Carrier Ethernet, as in a webcast with Bob Metcalfe himself on Tuesday the MEF unveiled the first twenty equipment vendors to pass the CE 2.0 certification process globally. That’s about quarter of the organization’s vendor members already with more in the pipeline, suggesting a rapid uptake is underway since the original announcement less than a year ago. [Read more →]

The Pan-European provider Interoute made it clear this week just what it is focusing on for 2013 with a three pronged expansion of their cloud presence. Interoute’s paths is one of the cleanest fusions of fiber and cloud out there, with little copper or legacy voice services getting in the way or needing to churn off. [Read more →]

If there’s one thing Sidera Networks has excelled at over the past year, it’s hooking up every data center within range of its fiber. Today they kept the trend going out in Chicago with a newly expanded route to Elk Grove to the north and the major data center park it hosts. [Read more →]

Yesterday, Zayo made a down payment on its recent plans to build out 100G in earnest this year. The upstart-turned-fiber-giant says it has already deployed the technology on one of the busiest routes in the world, i.e. along the East Coast between their New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington DC markets. And it’s not just for their own capacity needs, they’re offering the 100G wavelengths themselves to customers. [Read more →]

Integra Telecom continued its campaign for a more fiber-dependent diet this week by building out its metro connectivity to two of Digital Realty’s many data centers. The western regional network operator has brought two of the data center REIT’s locations in Sacramento, CA and Hillsboro, OR online. They’ve been adding key buildings to their network at an accelerated [Read more →]

Yesterday Africa’s Liquid Telecom made a significant foray into new territory with the purchase of the East African assets of Altech. The deal is for shares rather than cash, with Altech becoming an 8.6% shareholder of Liquid’s parent company.  Altech’s network business in East Africa hadn’t been performing well lately, and they’re obviously hoping that Liquid’s greater scale will help turn things around. [Read more →]

Now that the battle lines have been clearly drawn in the battle over the erstwhile WiMAX protagonist Clearwire, it’s time for a poll.  Dish’s higher bid for all or part of the company has thrown a potential wrench into the purchase, and several large investors are agitating for a better bid from Sprint/Softbank.  Sprint can stop a competing deal, but it needs more than 50% of minority investors to sign on with its own.  What do you think, is Sprint/Softbank going to win this one? [Read more →]

Three interesting deployment announcements around the world already this week from Infinera, Juniper, and ECI Telecom:  [Read more →]

There’s a new savior on the horizon for those facing the onslaught of video bits over that last wireless mile. But it’s not gear, it’s just a new video codec. The ITU has formally approved H.265 High Efficiency Video Coding, or HEVC, which will join MPEG-4’s H.264 in the industry’s content delivery toolbox. [Read more →]

According to Izvestia.ru (via Telegeography), Polarnet just cleared another hurdle as Russia’s Telecoms ministry has come to an agreement with the government regarding a rather important detail: the money.  The cable system, if it does get built, would go from Bude in the UK through Murmansk, Anadyr and Vladivostok and connect up to Tokyo after about 17,000km.  The pricetag is apparently pushing $1B at this point, and so the real question is just [Read more →]

Here’s a quick roundup of some sector news to start the week, three data center items and one CDN expansion from the end of last week that are worth a look.  [Read more →]

The year has started off slowly on the Ramblings Jobs Board, but we have a new listing this week at last for an opening on the southern side of the Eastern Seaboard.   [Read more →]

Here’s a Friday morning look at various metro news items I didn’t get to this week that I probably should have: [Read more →]

Just as they did in the third quarter, Juniper Networks (NASDAQ:JNPR, news, filings) turned in a stronger than expected performance on all fronts in their fourth quarter report yesterday after the market closed.  Revenue, non-GAAP earnings per share, and non-GAAP operating margin all came up very solid.  However, also just as in Q4, they kept their cautious outlook toward the near future and tempered expectations.  Here’s a quick chart with some context: [Read more →]

Tata Communications (news, filings) has taken the 100G plunge beneath the Atlantic Ocean, unveiling an upgrade to its TGN-Atlantic cable system. The 13,000km system between London and New York will have its 100G ready for service during the first half of this year, meaning probably June. Just how big that makes the cable in terms of overall theoretical capacity was not mentioned. [Read more →]

That’s the word this morning from the Wall Street Journal, which seems to have the best rumor trackers in tech these days. In this case though, they don’t know what Google is actually up to – just that it’s wireless and secret. [Read more →]

This article was authored by Marc Einstein, and was originally posted on telecomasia.net.

The recent news that Myanmar will soon revamp its telecom market by offering two telecom licenses to either local or foreign players in H12013 will quite possibly be the wireless story of the year for Southeast Asia. [Read more →]

Time for a mid-week roundup of news worthy of a quick look, with items from Emerald Networks in the Atlantic, Level 3 in the channel, ADVA in the Balkans, Equinix in the cloud, and ChinaCache in, well, China. [Read more →]

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO, news, filings) kept up its pace of acquisitions this morning with the announcement of its intent to acquire the Israeli software maker Intucell. Intucell’s main product line is software for self-optimizing networks, which enable mobile carriers to ‘plan, configure, manage, optimize and heal cellular networks automatically, according to real-time changing network demands’. Sounds like SDN for wireless equipment. [Read more →]

It’s been a busy week for Zayo already, especially with European data center operators. Today they announced they have hooked up Volta’s data center on Great Sutton Street in central London, which will be of interest to the low latency guys. Zayo has been continuing on the path AboveNet had been following with its UK business and London metro fiber, if not accelerating things as they usually do.  [Read more →]