Telecom Ramblings

Fridays are slow news days, so let’s catch up on some news on the cloud and datacenter front:

Way over in Chongqing, China, Pacnet has been making some friends.  The Asia Pacific networking specialist has signed on to the city government’s plans for an international cloud computing hub.  Centrally planned Chinese government projects are rarely small, and indeed they have dedicated 10 square kilometers to it of which 3 are reserved for the buildout of datacenters.  If it happens, the deal would make Pacnet Business solutions the first foreign JV to operate in the new Special Zone with a data center holding at least 1,500 racks.  But Chongqing?  I mean, [Read more →]

Ok, several people have asked why I haven’t commented on the National Broadband Map yet.  It was, of course, unveiled a week or two ago to great fanfare, and has generally gotten good reviews.  Or at least as good as is possible for such an endeavor.  Despite my own predilection toward maps in general, and maps related to fiber and bandwidth more specifically, I haven’t been able to get real excited about it.  Here are my top 3 reasons why it’s great, and my top 3 reasons for why it’s not: [Read more →]

With one of its signature multi-PR blasts this morning, Juniper Networks (NASDAQ:JNPR, news, filings) launched itself into the packet optical arena.  They unveiled their new their Converged Supercore, which aims to put them right in the thick of things with Ciena and Alcatel-Lucent.  The idea is, in their words, to combine ‘the inherent efficiency of MPLS, the simplicity of switching and integrated optics to deliver unmatched network scale with fewer network elements.’  It’s a different approach in a rapidly [Read more →]

I missed it on Monday, but FPL FiberNet has made a rather interesting move westward into Texas by purchasing the longhaul network assets of Grande Communications.  The thing about the fiber divisions owned by energy companies is that they tend not to make moves outside their home turf, except I guess for FPL.  Actually, I did hear a casual rumor last fall that there was something happening with FPL Fibernet and Texas, but I had been looking at [Read more →]

Competitive provider cbey closed out 2010 with a fourth quarter that was a bit lighter than expected due to lower average revenue per customer.  Revenues of $116.2M were up sequentially from $113.5M in Q3, but adjusted EBITDA remained flat at $18.0M while loss per share expanded to $0.07 from $0.02.  EBITDA margin therefore fell again to 15.5%, giving back a bit more of the gains [Read more →]

Earthlink (NASDAQ:ELNK, news, filings) is moving further into the enterprise telecom space with yet another M&A transaction.  They have purchased yet another company, STS Telecom, adding to their purchases of Deltacom and the pending deal for One Communications.  STS Telecom serves SME customers in Florida and Georgia, which also happens to overlap nicely with that Deltacom footprint.  That Earthlink is still on the prowl is a given.  They clearly have [Read more →]

The Carrier Ethernet marketplace saw some M&A yesterday, as Overture Networks and Hatteras Networks announced their agreement to merge.  The two occupy different but complementary niches in the Ethernet market.  Overture spends its effort on Ethernet over TDM and fiber, while Hatteras has focused on bonded copper pairs.  Following the completion of the deal in a few weeks, the combined company will keep the Overture name.  Financial details were not disclosed, but analysts suggest the total revenues are probably [Read more →]

Interoute and Infinera (NASDAQ:INFN, news, filings) took another step into the 100G era with a successful demonstration of the latter’s 5x100Gbps photonic integrated circuits.  The coherent 100Gbps channels were transmitted on fiber with 20x10Gbps of live traffic.  The route was from Amsterdam to London and then back again, totaling 940km with a 210km unrepeatered undersea segment across the North Sea in the middle.  The demo, went off without a hitch, naturally, else [Read more →]

On the network front, the news cup runneth over.  Here’s a quick look at everything I haven’t gotten to yet.

glbc won a showcase deal to provide SIP Trunking for Microsoft Technology Centers across the US.  The MTCs demonstrate UC to the business world, meaning potential [Read more →]

European metro fiber operator euNetworks (news) closed the books on 2010 with their earnings report today, showing strong sequential progress comparable to its larger US cousins.  The European metro market is a different place, with fewer independent operators that span national boundaries and lagging the US in development overall.  They also restated some items,here’s a quick table of their quarterly progress in 2010: [Read more →]

The European division of Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) continued making headway in the past two days, adding two interesting deals.  Today’s announcement was for yet another blended IP and CDN services contract for the gaming industry.  The independent development studio Crytek GmbH will be leveraging Level 3’s HSIP for dynamic game-related content and CDN services to [Read more →]

Regional CLEC and fiber operator Integra Telecom has itself a new chief executive officer, although it’s still a familiar face.  Tom Casey, who had been serving as the company’s chairman of the board since 2009, will take over the CEO position from longtime CEO and co-founder Dudley Slater.  Despite the leadership change, the company seems likely to continue on its current trajectory. Casey looks forward “to building on the company’s strong network of fiber [Read more →]

As promised in their earnings call last week, glbc is making its move on the cloud communications market.  Their announcement today covers phase 1 of this process, tying together the company’s audio conferencing service with the IPVPN and SIP trunking into a unified on-demand, pay-as-you-grow, integrated Communications as a Service product.  Lots of useful stuff wrapped up with a bow on top and sold via a shared seat billing model.  So if this is phase 1, [Read more →]

XO Holdings (news, filings) unveiled its entry into ‘cloud communications’ this morning, which is the next generation of its integrated services offerings for the enterprise.  Included are a “wide range of IP telephony features, local and long distance calling, enterprise-wide HD voice and video, network services, and IP phone sets in a communications as a service, per-user pricing model to allow IT administrators to easily deliver and manage voice, video and communications across their enterprise.”  Familiar stuff of course – it’s as much a repackaging as it is an upgrade.  By rebranding, they [Read more →]

Apparently so, since NEC and Pacnet today announced the signing of a contract to do just that to EAC Pacific, which is Pacnet’s two fibers on the five fiber Unity Cable System connecting Japan with Los Angeles.  EAC Pacific only went online last spring – a few weeks shy of one year ago.  An upgrade this early surely wasn’t part of the original idea, but citing ‘aggressive traffic growth’ have accelerated their plans.  Unanticipated demand is obviously [Read more →]

On Friday, ArsTechnica put together a rather comprehensive look at the current state of the Comcast/Level3 traffic dispute, which has continued to simmer throughout the first two months of 2011.  There has been no sign of any progress, in fact all we have seen is a hardening of positions – at least publicly.  At the end of the article, ArsTechnica asks: [Read more →]

Finishing off the week of fiber earnings reports, abvt turned in yet another outsized performance today for its fourth quarter following their expected completion of the  expansion to Amsterdam, Paris, and Frankfurt yesterday.  Revenues of $108.1M were at the top of guidance and above expectations, whether or not one includes the reported $0.4M in termination revenue.  Earnings per share of $0.85 easily outdistanced analyst projections, which Yahoo Finance had averaging $0.61, for a full year of $2.64 per share.  Here’s a quick table of Abovenet’s results in context of the past four quarters plus 2011 guidance: [Read more →]

The Q4 results of Internap Network Services (NASDAQ:INAP, news, filings) show that the company continues to transform itself internally, as they deliberately churn off less profitable partner data center revenues while driving growth in the ones they own.  Quarterly revenues fell sequentially once again, now dipping below the $60M mark, though it does still round up to that figure, and loss per share was $0.01.  Both were somewhat [Read more →]

Internet backbone operator Cogent Communications (NASDAQ:CCOI, news, filings) turned in its results for the fourth quarter and full year 2010, finishing a quiet but rather powerful year with a quarterly profit of $0.06 per share, six cents above expectations, and $0.01 per share overall.  The company has let its financial progress do its talking in 2010, here’s a quick table: [Read more →]

Another major submarine cable hooking up Europe is just about ready to roll — actually it probably would be fully ready if those pesky Egyptians could have waited a few weeks.  (Just kidding guys!)  Verizon, Bharti Airtel, and more than a dozen other consortium partners have accepted delivery of more than 11,300km of the Europe India Gateway (EIG) system as well as 11 of the landing sites.  That leaves just two landing stations in Egypt and the segments that connect through them – Libya to Egypt and Egypt to Saudi Arabia.  The thing about consortiums is [Read more →]

The metro fiber industry has long been one of the primary topics of this site, and I’m always looking for fresh material.  Today we have a special treat from a voice that doesn’t often make it into public forums, that of Sunesys and Larry Coleman, it’s President.  Sunesys is a division of the infrastructure construction group Quanta Services that specializes in leasing dark fiber and in E-Rate contracts hooking up schools.  They have an extremely dense footprint in the Philadelphia region, as well as a substantial presence in [Read more →]

There was some interesting consolidation news from somewhere other than the metro fiber and cloud/managed-services spaces.  This time it was in the enterprise and wholesale VoIP sector, where two of the more dynamic private companies are becoming one.  Bandwidth.com is acquiring dash Carrier Services in a deal that broadens its portfolio and will apparently take its revenue above the $100M mark annually. [Read more →]

glbc reported Q4 and full year 2010 earnings after the market close, posting a surge in both revenue and OIBDA.  The company had forecast such a surge in the second half, but I had had some doubts it would materialize even with the help of non-recurring items.  Actually, my estimates yesterday weren’t too far off, not including the $4M in revenue that derived from the Genesis acquisition.  Here’s a quick look at the company’s numbers in context: [Read more →]