Telecom Ramblings

This article was authored by James Henry, Senior Managing Director of Bank Street Group.

As we’ve spoken with industry executives and private equity partners over the past week since Zayo’s acquisition of AboveNet was announced, there have been a number of common questions and themes about the transaction itself [Read more →]

With the news that T-Mobile is laying off 1900 and two M&A events all happening this week, we could do with a reminder that there is hiring going on out there too. New this week on the recently upgraded Ramblings Jobs Board has been another in a series by northeastern fiber operator [Read more →]

If you thought that three months after the T-Mobile deal died the US government and AT&T (NYSE:T, news, filings) might have shook hands and made up already, you were wrong.  Ok, maybe nobody thought that. But yesterday the DOJ accused AT&T of knowing that those Nigerian scam artists that never seem to get tired of filling your email box had also [Read more →]

It’s been an interesting week, although the Zayo/AboveNet deal drowned out much of the rest. Let’s catch up on some of the items that slipped past my nets the first time through: [Read more →]

India’s Tata Communications (news, filings) formally launched its ‘Tata Global Network – Eurasia’ cable today, completing the first ‘wholly owned cable network ring around the world’. The 9,280km TGN-EA cable connects Europe to India via the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. [Read more →]

Yesterday southeastern metro fiber operator FiberLight (news) announced another expansion project to go with the buildout in West Texas. They will be providing Ethernet backhaul services to over 40 additional towers in the Tampa metro area for ‘one of the nation’s leading wireless providers’. The Tampa project will add 50 route miles in the region for FiberLight, bringing their Tampa total to [Read more →]

If anyone thought that Zayo’s proposed purchase of AboveNet earlier this week would keep them to busy for further M&A for a while, it only took two days for that illusion to be shattered. In its second M&A announcement of the week, Zayo has agreed to acquire Michigan-focused metro operator Arialink for $18M.  [Read more →]

So much of the news today is overseas, here’s a quick look at some more: [Read more →]

Colt Group (LON:COLT, news) picked up another modular data center victory today, this time for a luxury car manufacturer. The UK’s Jaguar Land Rover has selected the pan-European network operator to deploy a customized data center at its Solihull plant.  Jaguar will then [Read more →]

Interoute (news) said today that it has partnered up with Turkcell Superonline to add a second route into the Turkish metropolis of Istanbul. They first arrived in the city almost exactly two years ago as part of their eastward push.  [Read more →]

A few interesting items already this week in colocation: [Read more →]

Internap Network Services (NASDAQ:INAP, news, filings) seems to be making a bid to further expand its customer focus. The colocation and transit specialist has historically been most visible serving the niche of smaller web-centric enterprises for whom connectivity is everything. Today they are highlighting the addition of two more traditional retailers to their customer rolls. [Read more →]

Yesterday’s announcement of the intended purchase of abvt by Zayo Group (news, filings) included a “go-shop” provision under which AboveNet has 30 days to seek a higher offer. The followup question therefore is who might make a bid? There are several strategic buyers who have the means and the motive to go after these assets, but for each [Read more →]

Ok the initial surprise of the Zayo/AboveNet announcement has worn off, so here are a few additional thoughts on the implications of the deal. [Read more →]

Well, they managed to keep this one secret from me.  In a blockbuster announcement this morning, privately held metro fiber operator Zayo Group (news, filings) is buying its larger publicly held neighbor, abvt.  The purchase price will be approximately $2.2B, or $84 per share.  That’s a 13% premium above AboveNet’s closing price on Friday. [Read more →]

According to a Reuters report this morning, the submarine cable unit of Reliance Communications has filed for an IPO — but not in the US, but rather in Singapore as was rumored two months ago. This is of course the FLAG group, which is part of Reliance Globalcom. It is not yet clear precisely what parts of Reliance Globalcom will go into the IPO and what parts won’t. [Read more →]

Some quick takes on news items that fell through the cracks during the week: [Read more →]

In a thoroughly unsurprising move, Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S, news, filings) has now formally ended its wholesale partnership with LightSquared. While LightSquared remains publicly committed to finding a way to use its spectrum, the FCC’s decision to revoke the conditional approval they had granted a year earlier has left them without many options. Sprint had given the company extra time, but is now formally giving up on the project and returning some $65M in prepayments they had received but not yet used. [Read more →]

The equipment vendor ADTRAN (NASDAQ:ADTN, news, filings) decided not to keep the bad news to itself, and revised its first quarter revenue guidance. Two months ago, the company had projected revenues to remain roughly flat sequentially, or in the $170M range – which is where analysts had placed their bets too. But the company is now forecasting something more like $130-135, a shortfall of more than 20%.  Ouch. [Read more →]

For several years now, I have been tracking fiber-fed building counts for competitive operators, but for a couple years now I have been missing a recent datapoint for one of the largest metro fiber footprints out there, Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings). The Global Crossing merger only muddied the waters further, because I never had any datapoints for them and Level 3 had to reconcile the two footprints first. They have now done so, and given me the new data point I have been seeking – a bigger one than I had expected. [Read more →]

TGIF everyone.  Here’s a quick look at some interesting news from the international markets this week: [Read more →]

After a decade or so of endless deliberations that only the FCC can match, the Canadian government has finally gone and done it. They have now announced the lifting of foreign investment limits on telecommunications firms, or at least the smaller ones with less than [Read more →]

M&A rumors aside, cw is still on the move throughout its footprint. [Read more →]