Telecom Ramblings

In a surprise holiday announcement that has turned my earlier review of the 2012 US fiber M&A market into premature ramblings, Lightower Fiber Networks and Sidera Networks announced this morning their intention to merge. Berkshire Partners is behind the deal, in which both companies will be acquired for some $2B and then merged under the leadership of [Read more →]

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

ITEM: The US FCC has approved a plan for allowing spectrum sharing in the 3.5 GHz band for small cells.  The band in question (3550-3650 MHz) is currently used for US Navy radar operations and covers 60% of the US population. [Read more →]

Netflix got some coal in its stocking from the same place lots of people had presents delivered from this Christmas. On Christmas eve, the Amazon cloud’s elastic load balancer services ran into trouble at its US-East node, and Netflix’s streaming went down across much of North America alongside various other web properties that depend on it. [Read more →]

In another case of an entrenched operator buying its way into the managed hosting space, Montreal-based Cogeco is buying Vancouver-based Peer 1 Network Enterprises. The C$526M deal will add 19 data centers and extensive expertise in managed hosting, dedicated servers, colo, and, of course, cloud computing to Cogeco’s footprint. [Read more →]

A very Merry Christmas to you all, before everyone leaves early today. And on that note, here’s a quick rundown on some news from fiber and colo from the last few days that somehow slipped through the cracks: [Read more →]

The move by Sprint/Softbank to buy the rest of Clearwire surprised nobody except with its timing, but there is nevertheless some dispute over the price.  After all, Sprint is buying a company that it owns a majority stake in, and therefore there is always the suspicion that minority shareholders will get the short end of the stick.  In this case one of those minority investors, Crest Financial, is already making a stink and looking for allies.  What do you think, do they have a case?  Have your say, vote here: [Read more →]

The continent of Africa has gained yet another major submarine cable connection, as France Telecom-Orange and its consortium partners have officially brought the Africa Coast to Europe cable system online at a ceremony in The Gambia.  The fiber itself has been in place for months, but now the whole thing is ready to roll. [Read more →]

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

The controversial World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12) to update the 1988 International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) ended in Dubai on Friday. The good news: the ITU did not take over the internet as many groups feared. The bad news: the telecoms sector now potentially has two [Read more →]

Here’s a quick rundown of news from the data center space this week that is worth a quick look: [Read more →]

This morning, the pan-European network operator Colt Group (LON:COLT, news) announced new initiatives to cut costs and adjust to the shifting European service provider market. The company has for years now been managing a transition from legacy voice services into a more data-centric approach, and is now choosing to accelerate the process further. [Read more →]

TW Telecom (NASDAQ:TWTC, news, filings) is expanding its national metro fiber footprint into a new metro area. They’ve built out fiber in Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls up in the Idaho Panhandle, stretching to the east from their existing Spokane market presence across the border in Washington. The expansion will bring tw telecom’s [Read more →]

As last year ended, I predicted that fiber M&A activity in the USA would decrease for 2012. Zayo’s Dan Caruso set out to prove me wrong of course, with six of his seven acquisitions aimed at yet more fiber. But beyond Zayo, I seem to have been right because it was pretty sparse when it came to fiber-related deals. [Read more →]

Time for a quick look at what’s been going on in the metro, with items from Zayo, Comcast Business, TelePacific, Integra Telecom, and tw telecom: [Read more →]

It’s officially tentative now: clwr has agreed to be acquired by its majority holder Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S, news, filings) for $2.97/share for the half Sprint doesn’t already own. Official because they’ve entered into a definitive agreement, and tentative because it won’t close until after the Softbank transaction does and is probably going to face some minority shareholder challenges in the meantime. [Read more →]

Europe’s euNetworks (news) is on the move this last week before Christmas in the London metro area. They announced the addition of Basildon to the company’s dedicated finance network, and unveiled a new ultra-low latency route between Basildon and Frankfurt. [Read more →]

As the year comes to a close, the content delivery giant Akamai (NASDAQ:AKAM, news, filings) is choreographing its changing of the guard. Earlier this year CEO Paul Sagan announced he would be leaving, but the search for a replacement didn’t stray too far from the tree. Today the company is formally announcing that co-founder and current Chief Scientist Dr. Tom Leighton is taking the reins. They’re also promoting two senior executives to help add operational muscle to the team.  [Read more →]

Seven times lucky, or so Zayo Group (news, filings) hopes as they have now announced their seventh acquisition of the year.  They are buying Baltimore’s Litecast for $22M in what is probably their final deal of the year, although there’s still two weeks left and you just never know. [Read more →]

Time for a quick look at news on the international front this week from NTT, GTS Central Europe, CDNetworks, and Level 3. [Read more →]

The quarterly results from Ciena (NASDAQ:CIEN, news, filings) offer up a regular off-month peak into the market, and today’s was a bit wintery.  The company’s fiscal fourth quarter results were in the right ballpark as compared with guidance, but the company’s forecast for their fiscal Q1 were on the light side in an echo of what we saw three months ago: [Read more →]

The rumors finally panned out, as a regulatory filing this morning revealed that Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S, news, filings) has proposed to buy the 49% of Clearwire that it doesn’t own at $2.90 per share. That would total about $2.1B if it comes to pass, but this is still early in the process.  [Read more →]

Seems like everyone is putting in their 100G two cents in the second half of 2012, preparing for when the technology really comes into its own next year. This morning, one of the earliest deployers of 100G updated the status of its current adoption: Verizon (NYSE:VZ, news, filings). [Read more →]

2012 is winding down, but network M&A isn’t on vacation yet — at least in Texas.  This morning Alpheus Communications made its first inorganic expansion move in recent history, announcing the acquisition of Net Star Telecommunications.   [Read more →]

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

We hear more and more about the idea of multi-screen culture, in which users will expect more and more of their content to be available seamlessly on their smartphones, tablets, laptops and TV sets. That creates a dilemma for mobile advertisers who are struggling just to [Read more →]