Telecom Ramblings

On Friday, Time Warner, Comcast, and Bright House announced an agreement to sell their spectrum to Verizon for $3.6B. The 122 AWS spectrum licenses, held by the SpectrumCo joint venture, give Verizon’s already vast spectrum holdings a boost that will help it meet LTE data demands for quite some time.  Meanwhile, Comcast and Time Warner will also be [Read more →]

Back in July, a previously unknown outfit named Emerald Atlantis picked TE SubCom to help build a brand new 100x100Gbps transatlantic cable system. This fall, the company has rebranded itself as Emerald Networks, hired a CEO and CFO, and today it formally launched its effort, aiming for completion in the Spring of 2013. [Read more →]

Zayo Group (news, filings) never wastes time closing acquisitions, so it came as no surprise to me that the company announced this morning that its purchase of 360Networks is already a done deal. The combined company has an annualized run rate of [Read more →]

TGIF, is it December already? Here’s a quick look at a few more items from the metro space this week: [Read more →]

After the FCC’s unambiguous challenge to the merger of AT&T and T-Mobile last week, AT&T’s strategic retreat and rumors of a divestment package, and everything that has gone under the bridge since the deal was announced last march, it’s time for another poll. What do you think, is the merger now fully DOA or are there chapters left to write? [Read more →]

They took it down to the wire, but Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S, news, filings) and clwr have made peace again. Clearwire will make the $237M debt payment that they had threatened to default on, and Sprint has offered them up to $1.6B in funding and payments for services, although not all at once and with strings attached of course.  [Read more →]

It’s official, Windstream (NYSE:WIN, news, filings) is now a national super-CLEC. Today they closed their purchase of PAETEC (news, filings) in a $2.3B stock deal, bringing the competitive service provider’s $2B in annual revenue under their wing. Of course, Windstream’s earlier purchases of Nuvox and KDL/Norlight had already taken them quite a distance down this road, but PAETEC gives them a much, much larger presence outside of their ILEC footprint. [Read more →]

For the last month and a half, the media has likened the Sprint/Clearwire soap opera to a variety of games – baseball, global thermonuclear war, and of course chess. Now I’m a chess player, and these guys are not playing chess. [Read more →]

On Monday I posted the my updated relative valuations chart for Q3, and here is the followup with a look at the rest of the data showing the latest trends in Revenue Growth, EBITDA Margin, and Capex as a percentage of revenue. [Read more →]

Taking a break from its merger travails back in the USA, AT&T (NYSE:T, news, filings) deepened its relationships in the largest market in the world today. China Telecom (NYSE:CHA, news, filings) and AT&T have signed a strategic framework agreement aimed at better serving the needs of multinational customers. [Read more →]

Time to catch up on interesting international news items this week.

In the Pacific, independent operator Pacnet followed through on its content delivery plans, launching the Pacnet CDN. The company partnered with [Read more →]

Zayo’s appetites get bigger every year, but yesterday’s expansion announcement may be its most aggressive organic buildout yet.  The fiber operator unveiled plans to build a metro network across the San Diego metro area, and we’re not talking about a starter ring or two here.  When complete, Zayo’s San Diego buildout will cover some 400 route miles. [Read more →]

Midwestern fiber operator Unite Private Networks took another aggressive step forward from its rural E-Rate roots. Yesterday they opened up a new regional intercity network across the Colorado ‘Front Range’. [Read more →]

A quick look at recent developments in the colocation, data center, and cloud segment: [Read more →]

National CLEC PAETEC (news, filings) said yesterday it has picked up another federal contract. DISA has awarded them a three year contract to supply Fort Drum at the foot of the Adirondacks with fiber and DWDM services.  Fort Drum trains 80,000 troops annually and is the home of [Read more →]

Last week it was the city of Seattle looking to unload a public fiber asset, and now apparently it is the state of Iowa according to an article in the Quad City Times. A special committee authorized by the Governor and the Legislature is putting together a process by which the state would solicit offers for the Iowa Communications Network.  [Read more →]

In the aftermath of the AT&T-Mo deal kerfuffle over the past week and a half, lots of commentary has focused on what alternatives Deutsche Telecom AG (ETR:DTE, news, filings) has if it all falls apart – as seems more likely than ever. Yesterday, one piece has DT looking to buy Sprint for $30B in what has to be one of the more loony possibilities.  But why do we have to make things so complicated?  DT has an obvious way forward. [Read more →]

Back at the start of Q3, competitive network operators were seeing strong valuations following a quarter of good press, M&A activity, and lots and lots of rumors. But in the third quarter and on into the fourth now, the market has turned decidedly ambivalent toward the sector despite continued margin gains and solid results. [Read more →]

According to various reports, AT&T (NYSE:T, news, filings) is considering the possibility of divesting up to 40% of T-Mobile USA in an effort to salvage its intended acquisition following the FCC’s decision to pile on. It would be an expected yet bold revision to the original deal, but honestly I rather doubt it’s going to work. [Read more →]

The M&A story that has been brewing over the weekend has Akamai (NASDAQ:AKAM, news, filings) making a serious bid for Cotendo. Cotendo plays at the high end of the content delivery market, offering dynamic site acceleration, application acceleration, and mobile content acceleration, and has been making rapid inroads all year with several hundred customers already.  The supposed deal has been pegged by various reports at around [Read more →]

This article was authored by Tony Poulos, and was originally posted on telecomasia.net.

Paranoia reached new heights with news out that a US government committee has launched a full investigation into the potential security threat of Chinese telecom equipment companies operating in the United States. [Read more →]

The legal team at AT&T (NYSE:T, news, filings) didn’t get much of a Thanksgiving break. Following the FCC’s bombshell earlier this week moving to oppose the merger, the AT&T and Deutsche Telecom AG (ETR:DTE, news, filings) have formally but temporarily withdrawn their applications to the FCC. AT&T now also says it will take a $4B charge in Q4 to account for the likelihood that the deal won’t happen and they’ll be on the hook for that hefty breakup fee. But both companies say [Read more →]

Who knew that Seattle had 500 route miles of dark fiber lying around? The University of Washington and the city’s mayor Mike McGinn last week announced a partnership aimed at leasing access to this fiber infrastructure to private companies. According to the mayor’s [Read more →]