Telecom Ramblings

This article was authored by Grace In Mono, and was originally posted on telecomasia.net.

In this interconnected world, no economy can grow without the internet. Several studies have shown that a 10% increase in broadband penetration could improve gross domestic product (GDP) and labor productivity, especially in low– and middle-income countries. But apart from access, the quality of connection defines  [Read more →]

Lots of news to start the week already, here’s a quick look at some interesting bits from Fibertech, Sparkle, Level 3, Telx, and SegTel: [Read more →]

Perseus Telecom and Reliance Globalcom say they have teamed up to take the leading position in the transatlantic latency race away from Level 3’s AC-1 route, which had held the position for some time. The two have launched the QuanTA system, which leverages Flag Atlantic’s northern cable, the latest advances in optical technology, dispersion compensation methodology, and processing equipment, and of course shorter routes. [Read more →]

After more than two months of consideration and a challenge from Tata Communications (news, filings), Vodafone Group (NYSE:VOD, news, filings) said this morning that it has reached an agreement to buy cw.  They had received a three day extension on Friday, which seemed to indicate the tying up of loose ends on a bid.  The purchase will give Vodafone a substantial enterprise-focused fiber footprint in the UK that will help them scale their mobile backhaul infrastructure. [Read more →]

Pan-European network operator and cloud services provider Interoute offered a window into its 2011 performance this morning. The company found growth in both its network and cloud businesses, and revenues surged all the way to €366M, 24% higher than the prior year despite the continent’s overall macroeconomic malaise. EBITDA and earnings also rose to [Read more →]

Data center REIT CoreSite (NYSE:COR, news, filings) hit the acquisition trail today and entered their eighth US market.  They have purchased Comfluent, a carrier-neutral, network-centric colocation provider located in Denver.  Comfluent provides colocation space and cross connects across 9,300 square feet at 910 15th and Pearl Plaza, including [Read more →]

Time for a poll, what do you think? [Read more →]

For the past year, the mantra of the large wireless carriers has been of a looming spectrum crisis.   It was the biggest reason AT&T put forward to push through its bid for T-Mobile USA, and it helped LightSquared make its case that making its spectrum available would help add competition to the market.  Both efforts went down in flames, and now Verizon is also dancing a bit to convince regulators to let it buy a pile of AWS spectrum from the cable companies by offering to sell other spectrum – this time in the 700Mhz A/B bands. [Read more →]

Time to catch up on some other noteworthy news from this week from inetwork, Enventis, Broadsoft, and Telco Systems: [Read more →]

Yesterday in New Delhi, yet another giant international submarine cable project was unveiled. The BRICS cable project would hook up Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa to the US. If you’re a map freak like me, you’ve now got a globe in your head on which you can’t figure out just what route we’re talking about. [Read more →]

Two announcements by Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) this week show the two sides of Level 3’s efforts to boost its growth in Europe in what has been a very persistetly tough economic environment. [Read more →]

Telecommunications giant Verizon (NYSE:VZ, news, filings) reported its first quarter 2012 earnings this morning, coming in slightly stronger than expected overall. Revenues of $28.24B were slightly ahead of expectations, while earnings per share of $0.59 beat composite analyst projections by a penny. The market is pleased thus far, with the stock up about [Read more →]

Yesterday Tata Communications (news, filings) took itself out of the auction for cw, after the two companies were unable to come to terms on a price. Tata had inserted itself into the process in late February after Vodafone Group (NYSE:VOD, news, filings)‘s initial expression of interest two weeks earlier. I had thought Tata might have a better fit than Vodafone, but of course C&W has [Read more →]

Zayo, of course.   This morning AboveNet announced that the go-shop provision that was part of its merger agreement with Zayo has expired.  No additional bids were received, and therefore it looks like the deal will in fact go through as originally envisioned.  There had been no serious talk of another bid (that I heard anyway), and indeed it was hard to come up with a bidder with both [Read more →]

Telecommunications giant Verizon (NYSE:VZ, news, filings) this morning introduced a newly enhanced low latency offering on the crucial New York City to Chicago route. They’re targeting the high speed trading segment of course, with CME Group being one of the first to take advantage of it out in Aurora, Illinois. And Verizon provided an actual latency number for the new service: as low as [Read more →]

Time for some quick takes on recent news from the colocation and interconnection segment: [Read more →]

Two interesting items this morning from NAB coming out of two very different CDN operators whose paths have been diverging further lately. Obviously both companies still target many of the same opportunities, but lately they have chosen to emphasize different aspects of their offerings. [Read more →]

Here’s a quick look at some news already this week from competitive metro operators XO, Fiberlight, Zayo, and Tower Cloud: [Read more →]

This is a guest post by Paolo Gorgò.  If you might be interested in a guest post, then contact the webmaster.

Equinix finished 2011 with 4,317 customers, excluding smaller clients inherited through the Virtu acquisition in East Netherlands.  While looking at customer count may not be necessarily indicative of revenues, the exercise of analyzing this metric may be interesting to see local strengths, [Read more →]

Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) said this morning that it has completed a major expansion of its CDN capacity globally. That Level 3 is continuing to pour resources into the fastest growing piece of its business isn’t shocking of course, but it’s nice to get some details now and then. [Read more →]

Hibernia Media (news) and Colt Group (LON:COLT, news) have entered into a strategic relationship aimed at global media markets. Colt has picked Hibernia’s platform to deliver managed broadcast services to its European media customers, enabling them to draw on [Read more →]

As most have noticed, net neutrality storm clouds are gathering again and battle lines are being drawn. The flashpoint right now is Comcast’s decision to have its Xfinity streaming content not count against its bandwidth caps, but it’s not just Comcast. AT&T and Verizon are working on related ideas in which content providers would pay to have their traffic counted against data caps. While all this looks like it will develop into a purely partisan disagreement, I’m starting to wonder if there isn’t something useful buried in the idea. [Read more →]

Australian service provider M2 Telecoms says that it has agreed to buy the Australian operations of Primus Telecommunications Group (NYSE:PTGI, news, filings). Primus has been considering strategic alternatives since October. The company obviously has found the optimal solution to be breaking up the assets in order to appeal to local buyers, which is what I suggested [Read more →]