Telecom Ramblings

We hear so much about the impending flood of mobile data that sometimes it drowns out the real data. Traffic is always growing, but how quickly depends on what part of the network you are looking at. According to Telegeography this morning, international backbone growth slowed down yet again this year even as it reached the [Read more →]

Australia’s PIPE Networks is joining the 100G party, courtesy of Infinera’s DTN-X platform and those 500Gbps PIC superchannels. Infinera’s gear went live to market this summer, and this is the first APAC deployment to be announced. [Read more →]

No, it’s not the death of network neutrality – not yet anyway. Today the direct operator billing provider MACH won itself a contract with Skype, under which users will be able to purchase Skype credit via their mobile phone bill or pre-paid account.  Skype hopes to [Read more →]

XO revealed more of its 100G upgrade plans this morning, announcing that Ciena gear will be playing a prominent role. XO plans to use the vendor’s packet-optical gear and coherent technology to boost capacity on its metro and intercity networks across the country. [Read more →]

Some quick takes from the datacenter and the cloud from Interoute, NaviSite, Cobalt, and Akamai: [Read more →]

Zayo Group (news, filings) finished off a very busy summer season with the closing of its purchase of FiberGate. The $117M deal adds 779 route miles of fiber (399 of them new) and 315 on-net buildings to Zayo’s network in the Washington DC and Baltimore region.  [Read more →]

In a rare slimming down move by the data center industry’s most aggressive buyer, Equinix (NASDAQ:EQIX, news, filings) announced plans this morning to make itself smaller by selling off 16 of its IBX data centers around the US. The buyer is 365 Main, backed by Crosslink Capital and Housatonic Partners which will enter 16 new markets via the purchase. [Read more →]

Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) added another target market for its content delivery portfolio: the feds. They have added their CDN services to their WITS-3 contract vehicle, which handles common pricing for all federal agencies operating in the National Capital Region. [Read more →]

Welcome back from that long weekend, summer’s over now. While the US is still catching up on its email, here’s a quick look at some overseas news: [Read more →]

According to FierceWireless and other reports, the FCC is preparing to revise how it decides how much spectrum is too much. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski will propose the review with a vote on September 28. They’ll be looking at the rather obvious issue of whether to treat lower frequency spectrum differently than higher frequency spectrum, expecially in the context of [Read more →]

Labor Day weekend awaits, at least in the US.  Here’s a Friday poll first though.  After last week’s FCC move suspending flexible deregulation of special access markets on the grounds they were obviously not working, the next question is obvious.  What ought they do now, if anything? [Read more →]

This article was authored by Michael J Carroll, and was originally posted on telecomasia.net.

Is the UK reacting too harshly to web trolls – people who post insulting or derogatory comments on social networks? [Read more →]

Time for a quick review of news from the colo and cloud sector, featuring Fogo, zColo, IO, Primus, and Switch: [Read more →]

Ciena (NASDAQ:CIEN, news, filings) followed up its upbeat fiscal Q2 report with a more muted fiscal Q3 report this morning.  Revenues came in at $474.1M, toward the upper end of guidance and a hair above analyst expectations, while adjusted loss per share of $0.04 was slightly below expectations.  It’s probably the Q4 revenue guidance that will attract the most eyes though, coming in light.   Here’s a quick table in some context.   [Read more →]

Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) said this morning that it has been selected as the official media and technology provider for the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte next week. It’s a major coup in the ‘politcal vertical’, but of course this almost an encore performance, as  four years ago out in Denver Level 3 did the same thing for Obama and crew.  [Read more →]

Time for a look at some news from around the world, with items from Hibernia Atlantic, AT&T, NTT, AXTEL, and Level 3: [Read more →]

A week without an expansionary move by Zayo Group (news, filings) is a rare thing these days. Yesterday the national fiber operator said it has upgraded its fiber route between Spokane, Washington and Portland, Oregon.  [Read more →]

Time Warner Cable (NYSE:TWC, news)‘s Business Class division announced big expansion plans for the largest metro market in the US. They’ll be putting some $25M into building out their fiber network in the Big Apple this year.  [Read more →]

Amsterdam’s AMS-IX is extending its exchange tentacles further into Equinix’s infrastructure in the Dutch capital.  The giant European internet exchange spans the metro area with some big pipes, with connectivity across Europe as well.  [Read more →]

Yesterday we had a bumper crop of cloud news, as providers across the ecosystem continue to jockey for position via partnerships, product launches, and the like. Here’s a quick rundown on items from Savvis, Masergy, Navisite, Cisco, Juniper, and Limelight: [Read more →]

TeliaSonera AB (ETR:TLS, news, filings) International Carrier and Hibernia Atlantic are teaming up, combining their respective media delivery businesses. Hibernia Media will be acquiring TSIC’s MediaConnect business and merging it into its own, while TSIC’s global fiber backbone will be used to greatly augment the combined networks’ reach around the world, but especially [Read more →]

Hughes Cloud Services is taking its SLA all the way to the desktop via Level 3’s MPLS network, according to a release out today. Rather than messing with private lines and longhaul connectivity, they’re sticking to the IP/MPLS layer with enhanced network monitoring to help monitor network health. [Read more →]

So the big news late last week, of course, was Apple’s victory over Samsung in its patent lawsuit to the tune of $1.05B. While there are still more rounds to go before that victory is set in stone, it will roil the handheld device sector bigtime and may even just be a skirmish that leads up to a fight with Google. But I’ll let the gadget blogs take that on. What I’m wondering is whether this is something network operators really did not want to see. [Read more →]