Telecom Ramblings

For Juniper Networks (NASDAQ:JNPR, news, filings), the second quarter apparently had more than the usual crop of speed bumps.  In the list of things one doesn’t generally want to read in an earnings release, Juniper saw ‘mixed signals from the macro economy’, ‘moderation in certain areas of the business’, and responded by taking ‘decisive steps to ensure our cost structure takes into account the near-term revenue environment’.  Here’s a quick rundown of their numbers on context. [Read more →]

Lots of earnings news coming over the next two days, so before we are inundated with revenues and EBITDA, here are a few snapshots of other interesting news that has crossed the wires recently: [Read more →]

I’ve written many times about the future of XO Holdings (news, filings) and how the presence of majority owner Carl Icahn has warped the company to the detriment of both employees and shareholders, but it’s always from an abstract strategic point of view.  But recent emails uncovered in the discovery process in one of several lawsuits by minority shareholders and included in the revised complaint have painted his meddling in the company in sharp relief.  Here’s former CEO Carl Grivner’s email response to a fellow board member’s proposal to incentivize XO management with stock options in August 2008 (emphasis added): [Read more →]

Level 3 and Global Crossing both report earnings on Wednesday morning, which of course is not a coincidence given their pending combination later this year.  Here’s a quick preview of what to expect, or at least what I expect. [Read more →]

I’ve noted a few times Integra Telecom’s increased focus on fiber connectivity as opposed to its more traditional CLEC business, but as a private company we don’t get to see many actual data points along the way.  Today though, the company revealed the extent of that acceleration by announcing that it has increased its on-net building count by 300 since the beginning of the year, giving them more than [Read more →]

The East African submarine cable system SEACOM has added some terrestrial fiber down in South Africa, investing R100M in dark fiber from Dark Fiber Africa as well as the equipment to light it.  The fiber will hook up the cable’s landing station on KwaZulu Natal’s coast with two redundant PoPs in Gauteng.  Gauteng is not a household name, but it’s two main cities of [Read more →]

Last week’s rumor of a strategic partnership between Vodafone Group (NYSE:VOD, news, filings) and euNetworks (news) turned into reality this morning.   euNetworks will provide the fiber infrastructure including fiber-to-the-tower powering Vodafone’s LTE rollout to the country’s top four cities of Frankfurt, Hamburg, Berlin, and Munich.  The two also signed an agreement that would see Vodafone leveraging the company’s extended network later on.   [Read more →]

According to Channel Partners Online on Friday, Internap Network Services (NASDAQ:INAP, news, filings) is revamping its channel, and some of the agents affected are not happy at all and are considering lawsuits and such.  In a followup, Internap clarified a few details, i.e. that they are trimming their list of master agents from 40 all the way down to 10.  Each of those 30 master agents has a list of subagents, meaning that a few hundred are getting the boot – including their evergreen monthly recurring commissions.  Agents in this segment were already smarting from [Read more →]

We have another job posting on the Telecom Ramblings Jobs Board, this time from Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings).  Level 3 is seeking an Account Director, or I should say Account Directors, in New York, Boston, and Washington DC.  All indications are that the company is poised for a period of sustained organic growth, and to pull that off they will certainly be needing more account directors.  [Read more →]

The big buzz around Verizon (NYSE:VZ, news, filings) this quarter has centered around it being the company’s first full quarter selling the iPhone, but you couldn’t tell from the release which didn’t mention the product directly.  Verizon Wireless did add an impressive 2.2M connections, including 1.3M retail postpaid customers, giving them 106.3M in all.  They sold 1.2M 4G LTE smartphones in the quarter, but those weren’t iPhones of course – emphasizing that [Read more →]

If you’re on the east coast, stay cool out there.  Here’s a quick rundown of some of the other items that have passed by the wires lately: [Read more →]

In a press release today, abvt announced that it is building into the data centers of Prov.net.  Prov.net operates 6000 square feet in its Providence facilities, aiming at disaster recovery, cloud services, managed services and colocation marketplace.  AboveNet is bringing its usual 432 strand metro fiber connection into the facility, which will then make up the bulk of its total of 500+ strands.  What’s interesting here is not so much that AboveNet hooked up another data center – they do that a lot of course. [Read more →]

It seems that the loss of iPhone exclusivity hasn’t left AT&T (NYSE:T, news, filings) entirely helpless – if their Q2 financials are representative anyway.  Revenues of $31.5B were just slightly above expectations, while earnings per share of $0.60 came in right on the button compared with analyst forecasts.  Wireless revenues rose to [Read more →]

It looks like there may be another new transatlantic cable in town soon.  Emerald Atlantis and TE SubCom announced the finalization of an agreement to build the Emerald Express Trans-Atlantic Cable System.  And what a system it would be too, supporting 100x100Gbps on each of six fiber pairs – which would add up to 60Tbps I believe.  The marine cable route survey begins in August, and the target date for the cable to be in service would be [Read more →]

Force10 Networks has apparently finally found a home according to reports today.  Dell, the giant computer maker, will be buying the company according to reports today as part of an effort to raise its profile with enterprise customers and of course the cloud.  The deal is expected to close [Read more →]

Time for a quick roundup of various news bytes from network operators this week: [Read more →]

Texas-based Data Foundry (news) has opened the doors of its giant new Texas 1 datacenter in Austin.  Phase one of the project is now complete, and customers are moving in.  That brings 250,000 square feet online in central Texas in addition to their ADC and HDC facilities in Austin and Houston, respectively.    They’ve been working on it for [Read more →]

Infinera (NASDAQ:INFN, news, filings), maker of longhaul and metro DWDM gear, helped kick off the earnings season today with its Q2 results.  Revenue of $96.0M was at the high end of guidance and a hair above analyst consensus.  Non-GAAP loss per share was 11 cents and non-GAAP gross margins checked in at 41%, both of which were inline with both guidance and estimates.  Here is a quick table summarizing their numbers in the context of the last few quarters: [Read more →]

Not that much going on today in the world of news, but we have more activity on the Telecom Ramblings Jobs Board – perhaps defying recent layoff news from Cisco just a little bit.   Today we have another job posting from metro fiber builder and operator Optical Communications Group (OCG) in [Read more →]

Yesterday Ciena (NASDAQ:CIEN, news, filings) won yet another 100G contract, but this time it was further off the beaten path than usual.  The Romanian research network RoEduNet will be using the optical equipment manufacturer’s coherent optical technology to power the first live 100GbE network in Eastern Europe.  Their partner Felix Telecom will be handling the [Read more →]

Limelight Networks (NASDAQ:LLNW, news, filings) expanded its stomping grounds deeper into the Middle Eastern marketplace with a win at MBC.  The Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC) has selected the evolving content delivery company as its sole solutions provider for video publishing, site acceleration, and [Read more →]

In what is probably the year’s least surprising downsizing event, Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO, news, filings) has detailed the headcount reductions they will make as the company tries to find its way back to the future by finding $1B in annual savings.  They will reduce their global workforce by 6,500, of whom approximately 2,100 will come via [Read more →]

Northeastern regional and metro fiber operator sidera has been busy increasing its depth at datacenters in its region lately.  Today they [Read more →]