Telecom Ramblings

No not the university, it’s actually about metro fiber getting hotter across the Atlantic. Yesterday, French-based competitive network operator Neo Telecoms announced the acquisition of the MIT group. The MIT Group operates in the Languedoc Roussilon region of France, which is basically the half of the country’s Mediterranean coast that is closer to Spain.  Their main focus was on the metro area of Montpellier.  Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here are three of them: [Read more →]

On Tuesday, I ran this poll asking readers to choose the companies most likely to be aggressive in M&A this year.  I’ll leave the poll open for a while yet, but the results are clear enough already to discuss a bit.  Zayo, tw telecom, Level 3, Earthlink, and Windstream make up the top 5, in that order. My own votes were only partially overlapping with that list. [Read more →]

The network business swiftly returned to work this week, so here is a quick look at several interesting items already out there this week: [Read more →]

According to Business Insider, Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO, news, filings) has in fact killed off the Umi, the consumer-targeted telepresence offering they unveiled a year and a quarter ago.  At least, they aren’t selling any more of them.  It was inevitable – $600 up front and $24.99/month to make video calls from your living room couch in 1080p, hope you shaved first. [Read more →]

Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR, news, filings) kicked of 2012 by tacking on a yet more colocation space to its extensive portfolio.  Today the data center REIT announced two transactions  that bring 489,000 square feet into its orbit. [Read more →]

Well, it didn’t take long for 2012 to punish someone for Q4 guidance. Acme Packet (news, filings), a specialist in session border controllers and related technology, yesterday offered up a rather dismal preannouncement, reducing guidance for the fourth quarter and the full year 2011.  According to CEO Andy Ory: [Read more →]

Over in the CLEC world, Birch Communications has been doing a bit of a stealth rollup.  Yesterday they announced their 14th acquisition on the past five years, signing an agreement to purchase the operating assets of AstroTel.  Those assets include an IP network covering part of the west coast of [Read more →]

Of course, it had been a whole quarter since the 360Networks deal was announced and a month since it closed, so Zayo Group (news, filings) naturally kicked of 2012 with its 18th acquisition. The company’s zColo division has bought MarquisNet’s Las Vegas data center business. [Read more →]

Colocation and boutique IP networking provider Internap Network Services (NASDAQ:INAP, news, filings) took another big step into the cloud this morning, announcing that they have purchased Voxel.  Voxel sells hosting and cloud services to the enterprise.  The deal has already closed, and has been valued about [Read more →]

Welcome back everyone!  I have asked this question each of the last several years, and in 2011 readers actually did a pretty good job, with five of the top seven making big moves during the year.  Once again, I’m including US fiber network operators generally valued at $500M or above, public or private – though I don’t claim the list is complete.  You can select up to three, so your second and third choices matter: [Read more →]

The travails of LightSquared (news) added quite a bit of spice to the wireless business last year, and the news won’t be letting up now that 2012 has begun. Over the weekend, the 4G wholesale protagonist got at least a bit of good news with a reprieve from Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S, news, filings). [Read more →]

The need for raw speed in the financial vertical has apparently evolved to the point where wireless transport may find wider usage.  According to this article, which a friendly reader pointed out to me over the holiday weekend, wireless gear is increasingly being marketed for its low latency advantages.  In fact there is one firm, McKay Brothers, that says it is building a wireless NYC-Chicago link that will best the ultra-low latency fiber build of Spread Networks.   [Read more →]

On this slow-news, mid-holiday Friday I’d like to take the opportunity for a bit of housekeeping.  First I’d like offer a big Thank You! to the many advertising sponsors that have helped make Telecom Ramblings possible throughout 2011.  In alphabetical order: [Read more →]

To say that the new LTE network lit up by Verizon (NYSE:VZ, news, filings) this year is having a few growing pains is now something of a Christmas understatement.  According to reports, service is again down for the count with customers unable to connect to its 3G and 4G network in major cities. [Read more →]

A few weeks ago, a research report by Oppenheimer started circulating in which the authors looked at the current state of the US longhaul transport market. In effect, they said that there is still a fiber glut and that there will continue to be a glut for another decade until there are only 3-4 players left in the longhaul market – with LVLT remaining the most active consolidator. I have been asked to comment on this report by a half dozen readers now, so here goes. [Read more →]

In 2011 we saw huge shifts at the border between telecom and internet infrastructure, as telecommunications companies of all colors and stripes took action to gain a foothold in cloud-based services. The word ‘cloud’ may be an over-used, under-defined buzzword, but it is now quite clear that the revolution that lies underneath it is quite real. As the telecom industry transforms in response we are seeing two quite distinct flavors emerge that in 2012 will continue to diverge. [Read more →]

Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S, news, filings) seems to be eager to get started with their LTE buildout, and I don’t blame them. Much of 2011 has been spent wringing hands (theirs and others) over their future plans and their competitive position if the AT&T/T-Mobile deal were to come to pass. Today the company reaffirmed its aggressive LTE buildout schedule, as part of its Network Vision initiative.  They hope to quickly make up [Read more →]

Did you know that at least five US competitive fiber operators are reporting 1,000 or more buildings on-net than they did last year at this time?  As promised, I have updated my metro fiber and on-net building statistics page to reflect all the fiber buildouts and M&A activity that have taken us through 2011.   You can check the full list of course, but here is a look at some incremental numbers. [Read more →]

Four new job openings were posted to the  Telecom Ramblings Jobs Board this week, making this the best December so far at least in one small way.  I have plans to change the jobs board over from the current limited, hosted system to something a bit more extensive, but that will [Read more →]

Yep, you heard me right.  After the plethora of smaller fiber deals in 2010 and this years larger combinations, I think 2012 is going to be a bit quieter on the M&A front. Part of the reason is simply that most of the low hanging fruit has been picked, and most of the assets out there are now in the hands of owners that know what to do with them – or at least [Read more →]

Well, the rumors turned into reality this time, as this mornings headlines have Akamai (NASDAQ:AKAM, news, filings) signing a definitive agreement to buy upstart competitor cotendo.  Talk of such a deal started bubbling up after Thanksgiving, and there were solid strategic reasons behind the combination.  But the rumored price tag overshot the mark slightly, as Akamai will be paying [Read more →]

Last January, I highlighted one of the more unlikely submarine cable plans that I had seen out there, connecting East Asia directly to Europe via the Arctic Ocean. Well whether the same protagonists are involved or not it seems as if the idea itself is still alive, as yesterday WFN Strategies signed on to help design and implement the Arctic Fibre cable system.  [Read more →]