Telecom Ramblings

According to a press release this morning, Fairfax Holdings and Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) have signed an agreement whereby Fairfax’s $127,962,000 in converts due 2013 will be converted into stock.  These are the 15% converts that Level 3 sold $400M of back in the darkest period of the recent financial crisis – November/December of 2008 – with a conversion price of just $1.80.  It was expensive money no matter how you looked at it, but [Read more →]

Western regional operator Integra Telecom announced another new PoP yesterday in Arizona, bringing Phoenix NAP on-net.  While most of their revenues come from the CLEC side of things, Integra has been emphasizing its fiber footprint more and more, bringing key sites on-net across the region.  Continuing in that vein, Integra will use its new PoP in Phoenix NAP to focus on [Read more →]

With the Telstra/NBN deal finally reaching the endgame, Australia’s bandwidth market has been very dynamic lately as everyone in the competitive landscape prepares for, well, a completely different competitive landscape.  iiNet, one of the country’s largest alternative network operators, has decided that what its future needed was a little more bandwidth.  They have been rolling out the first, but surely not the last, 100GbE [Read more →]

Carrier neutral datacenter giant Equinix (NASDAQ:EQIX, news, filings) is raising yet more money, announcing today its intention to offer $500M in senior notes due 2021.  They included the usual laundry list of potential uses – capital expenditures, working capital and potential acquisitions – as well as the potential repayment of their 2.5% converts which mature next year.  Those converts total only $250M and would convert to stock above $112.  They have $450M on the balance sheet, so [Read more →]

One of the more vexing problems in the wireless business is handling those temporary but truly high density cases, the most extreme of which is the stadium.  With up to 100,000 people packed into a few dozen acres, nearly all packing cell phones including lots of data-gobbling smartphones, keeping them all supplied with enough bandwidth is a challenge.  It’s like having everyone in a small city temporarily converge on one [Read more →]

They’re going to be needing some more bandwidth down in Latin America later this way.  Internet traffic has already been growing at a very rapid clip throughout the region, but that was without the Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX, news, filings) phenomenon.  The streaming video specialist today announed plans to expand into Mexico, Central and South America, and the Carribean in the second half of this year.  [Read more →]

Independent, wholesale, LTE protagonist LightSquared continued its contrary ways today, shrugging off the escalating GPS spectrum dispute and other hurdles to raise yet another pile of money.  The company said today that it has raised another $265M from both existing and new investors, bringing their 12 month total above $2.3B.  The company’s plans for the money are obvious of course, as they will need a whole lot to [Read more →]

Over the past week, quick articles have sprung up around the internet telling of Vermont’s Claude Desmararias and his fiber-laying Belgian draft horse Fred.  Apparently FairPoint Communications (news, filings) has been getting creative in its efforts to satisfy the data cravings of denizens of upper New England, moving beyond the mere, unimaginative truck roll.   Creativity is obviously a good thing, as Fairpoint has obviously had its troubles since taking over Verizon’s unwanted northern territories. [Read more →]

The UK subsidiary of glbc announced a key government deal today.  The company has been selected as one of the three key suppliers to the Managed Telecommunications Convergence Framework, which will be the procurement service for much of the UK public sector starting at the end of the year.  Services under the MCTF framework will either be PSN-certified or provide transition to others that are. I didn’t find a reference, but I’d guess that the other two key providers would likely be [Read more →]

One of the themes I am increasingly hearing about from both inside the industry and the investment community is just what it means that many of the longhaul fiber IRUs that were sold back in the bubble are now at or beyond middle age.  You know what I mean, the fiber connecting the major cities that got swapped and traded and eventually purchased out of BK or some other restructuring 5-10 years ago, but which powers much of the internet today.  Will those IRUs be renewed and at what price?  And if not, what happens?   There are two sides to the coin.  [Read more →]

Today a consortium consisting of Apple, Microsoft, Sony, RIM, Ericsson, and EMC emerged victorious in the auction for Nortel’s patents.  The pricetag was a staggering $4.5B, or five times the original stalking horse bid from Google and substantially more than [Read more →]

Before you go off for that idyllic weekend of barbecue and fireworks we’re all hoping for, let’s finish off the week with a look at a few more interesting tidbits:

Zayo picked up a a substantial metro deal up in Idaho, where one doesn’t come across too many substantial [Read more →]

Carrier Ethernet Exchange protagonist CENX (news) and Zayo’s zColo division have signed an agreement under which CENX will deploy its platform at the critical 60 Hudson Street datacenter in New York City.  It’s one of the most-connected buildings in the world, and will give CENX easy access to hundreds of operators of all stripes. [Read more →]

QuantHouse, which if you couldn’t tell from their name specializes in high speed algorithmic trading solutions, has selected connectivity from Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) to power its network between London to Stockholm.  This is a relatively new low latency route for Level 3, which has been expanding its European low latency portfolio steadily having gone to [Read more →]

Today I had a great time at JS&A’s first Telecom Exchange event, where I met many people and talked myself hoarse.  There were also several interesting announcements made at the event that are worth a quick look: [Read more →]

Intellifiber, whose new home is within PAETEC (news, filings), made another dent in the federal marketplace today.  The Defense Information System Agency (DISA) has awarded the company a three year contract for key fiber connectivity to the Defense Enterprise Computing Center (DECC).  The DECC provides computing, communications, and storage for other DoD services, agencies, and combatant commands, some of which surely involve rather important [Read more →]

Earlier this month, Midwestern regional provider US Signal began offering a managed data center service that marked their entry into the IaaS/cloud business.  While it seems as if everyone is in the cloud these days, most of the headlines go to the very largest players and the merger of the day.  An organic cloud buildout by a regional fiber operator could easily get lost in the shuffle, but the blending of metro and regional fiber and IaaS/cloud services seems like a story that might spread across the sector before long.  With us today to shed some light on US Signal’s viewpoint on the subject is Trevor Bidle, VP of Engineering: [Read more →]

Well, the question of when California-based CLEC TelePacific might finally take its business model beyond its west coast turf is now moot, as the company today announced its intention to buy Austin-based Tel West.  Tel West does most of its business in Texas, but also has a facilities-based presence up in Seattle as well as customers throughout the region with a total of around [Read more →]

Several expansion items in the metro and regional fiber sector in the past few days that are worth a look:

Zayo is on the offensive in Cincinnati, after announcing on Friday their intention to put new money into the market in response to demand from wholesale customers.  Cincinnati hasn’t been one of Zayo’s principle markets, the assets came largely from one (or both) of their two deals for assets from CityNet as well as probably a bit from the Indiana FiberWorks deal. In their new expansion, they will build out new miles of fiber in the city’s central business district and surrounding area, while doubling the company’s local on-net building count – which currently stands at [Read more →]

Hmmm, lots of news in eastern Europe today!  Alongside Level 3’s move on the Balkans, Akamai (NASDAQ:AKAM, news, filings) has also announced a significant expansion into the region for the first time.  They will formally move east from Germany into five new countries:  Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. [Read more →]

With its pending acquisition of glbc about to expand its network coverage inorganically, Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) has first taken the time for some organic expansion into some European territory neither has been in before.  They announced two new PoPs in the former Yugoslavia, adding Zagreb, Croatia and Ljubljana, Slovenia to their network.  [Read more →]

Private equity firm ABRY Partners has bought itself another networking business to go along with its Sidera purchase last year.  This time though, it’s not on the fiber side but rather on the managed services side.  They have agreed to purchase 100% of Masergy for an undisclosed [Read more →]

For Falcone’s LightSquared venture, the GPS interference issue is looking less like a speed bump and more like a brick wall.  After asking for more time, the company this week said it could perhaps make a few modifications to its plan that would interfere with fewer devices by cutting power and starting with a different frequency range than initially planned, an idea that seems to have pleased precisely no one.  Especially not the House of Representatives, where the House Appropriations Committee has now adopted an amendment prohibiting [Read more →]