Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR, news, filings) released the results of its survey of North American demand for data centers, revealing just how broad-based and unidirectional the sector’s expansion is right now. Ninety two percent said they will definitely or probably expand this year, while just four percent said they have no such plans. That’s up from last year, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s not going to go up next year — you can’t get more than 92% of respondents to consistently [Read more →]
Ramblings Jobs: UPN and CityFibre Holdings
March 9th, 2012
Two new jobs were posted to the Ramblings Jobs Board this week from Unite Private Networks and from City Fibre Holdings. Additionally, the jobs board itself finally got a long-needed overhaul. [Read more →]
SURFnet, Cisco Test ULH Alien Waves
March 9th, 2012
The Dutch research network said today that it has successfully demonstrated a 100G ultra-longhaul DWDM solution from Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO, news, filings). On a route between the SARA supercomputing site in Amsterdam and CERN to the south in Geneva, SURFnet introduced 100G single carrier optical interfaces into their existing infrastructure without any disruption. [Read more →]
Level 3 Takes Its Renewable Power Push East
March 9th, 2012
Last summer, Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) put a green foot forward by moving two colocation facilities in London and another in Amsterdam onto 100% renewable power. Apparently that went pretty well, because they added another five today a bit further to the east. [Read more →]
Telefonica’s Latin American Cloud Opens For Business
March 9th, 2012
Yesterday Telefonica (NYSE:TEF, news, filings) launched a cloud computing platform aimed at Latin America called Virtual Hosting 2.0. Latin America is of course Telefonica’s growth engine, while its Spanish incumbent and other European businesses are far less dynamic. Telefonica is powering the new platform via five interconnected data centers spread across five countries in South America: [Read more →]
Comcast Throws Cold Water On That Unlikely Netflix Rumor
March 8th, 2012
Yesterday the industry was abuzz with talk that Netflix was pitching a peace plan to the cable companies. The idea was that Netflix would become just another piece of the cable bill, squaring off against the likes of HBO and backing off their direct OTT challenge. Honestly, I found it hard to take seriously. According to FierceCable today, Comcast agrees with me. [Read more →]
Brazil’s Telebrás Plans Major Submarine Cable System
March 8th, 2012
According to an article on BNamericas, Brazil’s state-owned operator Telebrás is making a big undersea move aimed at dramatically increasing the country’s international bandwidth choices by hooking up four continents. [Read more →]
GSMA bans CBOSS from next MWC
March 8th, 2012
This article was authored by Michael Carroll, and was originally posted on telecomasia.net.
If you’re looking for evidence of the growing role of women in the telecoms industry, look no further than the news that Russian OSS/BSS vendor CBOSS has been banned from the next Mobile World Congress by organizer GSM Association.
Colo Bytes 3/7: QTS, Telx, Interxion, IO
March 7th, 2012
Several interesting items today from the carrier neutral data centers: [Read more →]
Ciena: Up From Here
March 7th, 2012
Two weeks ago Ciena (NASDAQ:CIEN, news, filings) preannounced its fiscal Q1 results, lowering guidance significantly to about $415M due to unexpectedly longer development cycles and seasonality and other such things. Today they turned in the real number, $416.7M, but spiced things up with an upbeat outlook. [Read more →]
Capex Trends for Competitive Service Providers – Q4/2011
March 7th, 2012
Capital expenditures among competitive network operators was remarkably stable sequentially in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to my latest data update. With one exception, network operators held the rudder quite steady both on the fiber-heavy and fiber-light ends of the spectrum. This is another nail in the coffin of the idea that [Read more →]
Alcatel-Lucent Matches Ciena’s 400G Chip
March 6th, 2012
It seems that equipment manufacturers are thinking along similar lines right now, and what they’re thinking is that 100G is today’s killer technology and tomorrow’s buggy whip. At OFC/NFOEC today Alcatel-Lucent is unveiling a 400Gbps Photonic Service Engine chip aimed first at improving the company’s 100G products but eventually at offering 400G wavelengths. [Read more →]
Level 3 Powers MicroSoft’s Lync Project, Enables Smilingbits, BRF
March 6th, 2012
Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) may be in the midst of a giant integration project, but in the past few days the focus has been more organic news. Today in particular, the company said it will be providing advanced voice services to the MicroSoft Lync Reference Architecture Project. [Read more →]
Tuesday Roundup 3/6: Birch, tw telecom, HickoryTech, iNetwork, Sidera
March 6th, 2012
A quick roundup of recent news items from the competitive side of the tracks that are worth a quick look: [Read more →]
Infinera’s DTN-X Bags C&W Worldwide
March 5th, 2012
Infinera (NASDAQ:INFN, news, filings) this morning announced its first customer contract for its new DTN-X 5x100Gbps product line, and it’s not one of the usual suspects. Cable & Wireless Worldwide will be using the gear to help power the brand new EPEG fiber system. [Read more →]
Tata Raising Funds for C&W Bid?
March 5th, 2012
Following last week’s acknowledgement that it is considering a bid for Cable & Wireless Worldwide, a Reuters report this morning says that Tata Communications (news, filings) is looking to access the debt markets raise as much as $2B in cash. Some of that is likely earmarked for refinancing activity, but it does seem likely that we’re looking at [Read more →]
NTT Hits the Ground in Indonesia
March 5th, 2012
NTT Communications (NYSE:NTT, news, filings) has launched its own fiberoptic network services in Indonesia. They have started out at the EJIP Industrial Park outside of Jakarta with service to multinational companies. They gained a fixed network operating license just three months ago, and [Read more →]
FCC Dashes Dish’s Spectrum Plans, For Now
March 2nd, 2012
Dish Network’s plans for building a national LTE network out of wireless spectrum repurposed from satellite duty took a major hit today. In finally making a decision, the FCC has done what it does best: it decided to delay making a decision. [Read more →]
Ramblings Jobs: Another For Sidera
March 2nd, 2012
Another job was posted to the Telecom Ramblings Jobs Board this week. Actually, this weekend the jobs board will be upgraded to a new version, just in time for an improving economy that hopefully will start producing jobs in quantity. But in the meantime, northeastern fiber operator sidera continued its steady stream of listings with another this week. [Read more →]
EBITDA Margins for Competitive Operators – Trends Through Q4/11
March 2nd, 2012
Nearly all the fourth quarter data is in now, so it’s time to take another look at some of the metrics for companies in the sector side by side. I have added fourth quarter data for two additional companies to the usual competitive mix: newly independent Lumos Networks (NASDAQ:LMOS, news, filings) and the increasingly hybridized ILEC/CLEC Windstream (NYSE:WIN, news, filings) (pro forma). Today let’s look at a plot of ebitda margin trends over time: [Read more →]
Ciena Scales to 400G, Programmably
March 1st, 2012
Ciena (NASDAQ:CIEN, news, filings) opened up a new front in the neverending battle for DWDM pre-eminence today by introducing a software-programmable coherent technology that scales all the way to 400Gbps. The new generation of silicon chips, which goes by the name WaveLogic 3, is about more than speed despite the big number. [Read more →]
Helix Nebula Effort Kicks Off
March 1st, 2012
One of the most obvious applications of cloud computing has always been what some call ‘big science’, in which vast piles of data must be processed in order to advance the latest research. By pooling resources and using computing on demand, research groups can more easily scale their infrastructure. Today a consortium of 18 European organizations teamed up to do just that with the launch of a common cloud computing platform called Helix Nebula – the Science Cloud. [Read more →]
Another Bidder for C&W Worldwide Emerges
March 1st, 2012
According to reports this morning, Tata Communications (news, filings) says it is evaluating a potential all-cash bid for Cable & Wireles Worldwide. While discussions are at an early stage, the Indian telecommunications conglomerate would need to [Read more →]