Telecom Ramblings

If you thought Allied Fiber was the only new longhaul fiber being put in the ground you may have been mistaken, at least on the New York to Chicago route where according to a recently unveiled website Spread Networks is preparing to go live in July.  Thanks to the kind reader who sent that link!  But where Allied Fiber did not have financial traders in mind when it was started has national dreams, Spread Networks’ vision begins with and does not yet seem to extend beyond the trading community.  The latency they seem to be promising?  [Read more →]

Colocation and cloud specialist Terremark (news, filings) [a subsidiary of Verizon (NYSE:VZ, news, filings)] is planning a NAP of Amsterdam, leasing some 25K square feet from inside the Amsterdam Airport Schiphol Area.  Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR, news, filings) will develop the infrastructure under a build-to-suit contract.    The new facility will feature massive connectivity with the Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMS-IX) via [Read more →]

Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) announced today that it is making its Manchetser PoP in the UK resilient, meaning that it will now be independent of the company’s hub in London and will feature diverse routing.  There is apparently an effort underway in Manchester to stimulate the economy and attract new businesses, and Level 3 is taking advantage of whatever carrots the city is offering.  They also stated that [Read more →]

Over the weekend there was a bit of discussion on the blogs about AT&T’s Femtocell and its value proposition.  Over on BroadbandReports, AT&T’s Seth Bloom was quoted as follows:

3G MicroCell is primarily intended to enhance the voice call quality experience in your home.  While it can carry mobile data traffic, that’s not the primary solution it provides.  Wi-Fi is the optimal solution for home mobile data use. We encourage people to take advantage of Wi-Fi capabilities – that’s why all of our smartphones include Wi-Fi radios, and usage on Wi-Fi doesn’t count against your mobile data usage bucket.

Now as that site is consumer focused, its main beef was [Read more →]

At its meeting yesterday the FCC voted on party lines to proceed with the discussion of the ‘third way’ of enforcing network neutrality that was proposed last month by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.  As is so often the case with the FCC, nothing has actually happened other than an agreement to hold more discussions about possibly doing something someday.  Anyone who was surprised by this step just wasn’t paying attention, and in fact both supporting and opposing forces surely [Read more →]

Seems like every few weeks another fiber provider puts itself on the market.  In 2010 so far we have seen Zayo buy AGL and Lightower buy Veroxity, while Fibertech, NSTAR, and Intellifiber are known to be soliciting offers.  But according to the Wall Street Journal, there is now yet more metro and regional fiber for sale: Alpheus and KDL are apparently on the block as well.  Assuming they are right (I will seek more information), here are a few comments about each: [Read more →]

When it comes to network services in the education sector in the New York metro area, Optimum Lightpath has been making some real progress against the incumbent Verizon.  Earlier this week the metro fiber division of Cablevision won a contract with Brooklyn Law School to provide internet and voice for its students.  The new service will reach 1,500 students and 150 faculty and staff both on campus and in 11 nearby residence halls. [Read more →]

Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) today announced an expanded relationship with Iceland-based CCP Games.  The original deal announced back in March was for caching and download, origin storage, and content analytics for various gaming titles including the massively multiplayer game EVE Online.  The expansion adds live online streaming for EVE Online’s in-game Alliance Tournament VIII that has been underway for the last few weeks, the finals being this weekend. [Read more →]

Broadsoft (NASDAQ:BSFT, news, filings) went public today, as planned.  The pricing of $9 per share was on the lower end of its expected $9-11 range and while it opened at $10 the stock is now lower in early trading.  In Wall Street lingo, that means the IPO might not (the day is not yet over) be a ‘success’, but that only really matters on Wall Street.  The market isn’t quite as favorable as it was a few months ago to tech IPOs, but BroadSoft is now [Read more →]

There’s a study put out today from AT&T (NYSE:T, news, filings) with the headline:  “Telepresence Can Reduce Corporate CO2 Emissions by 5.5 Million Metric Tons and Deliver $19 Billion in Financial Benefits to U.S. and U.K. Economies by 2020”.  I get a kick out of studies like this, but not because of how wonderful telepresence is or will be.   [Read more →]

Yesterday 360Networks announced an interesting contract and interconnection agreement with SDN Communications, a regional provider owned by a coalition of independent telephone companies in South Dakota.  360Networks will provide GigE private line service for SDN’s west coast needs.   SDN expanded its focus beyond South Dakota into surrounding states last summer, and seems intent on [Read more →]

A few quick notes about news items that have crossed the wires today and yesterday:

euNetworks has a new Chief Operating Officer.  John Franklin will take over the COO role as the company continues to add muscle to their operations in preparation for growth.  Franklin was most recently at BT, but had earlier been behind network development at Level 3 Europe where at the time he likely reported to none other than [Read more →]

When Genachowski unveiled its ‘third way’ to justify network neutrality regulations, we heard a great deal from the major service providers and of course it wasn’t terribly favorable.  However, today the FCC’s plan got some support from the leaders of a coalition of major competitive service providers that focus on US business markets.  They are [Read more →]

Several equipment-related announcements today worth a mention:

BTISystems has been making aggressive low latency moves of late, and today they rolled out a new transponder for 10G networks that adds only 20-30ns of delay to transmission.  That’s the equivalent to [Read more →]

Today Intellifiber formally announced the turn-up of a new low latency network between Chicago and Washington DC.   The new connection, rated at 13.7ms, fits alongside their 17.2ms NYC/Chicago route and is apparently just the beginning.  They intend to complete the triangle with a similar NYC-DC offering and to extend their low latency offerings further within the deepest part of their footprint to places like [Read more →]

A Forbes article today describes the risk of having a network connection in todays world:  “While it allows you to communicate around the globe with the click of a mouse, it also provides a data path for anyone to connect back to you–and not always for good reasons.”  Really?  You’d think we wouldn’t need such a warning after decades [Read more →]

As promised, I have updated my list of metro fiber providers, their on-net building count, and other statistics.  The previous update was in December, and many of the providers on the list have clearly been very busy since then, adding more and more depth to their networks.  While most of the increases in fiber miles and building counts over the past 6 months are from expansions, there were some related to the inclusion of [Read more →]

Just a bit over two months ago, Covad and MegaPath announced their plans to merge and their intention to form a national Managed Services Local Exchange Carrier (MSLEC).  I speculated at the time that they might not be done yet, but I didn’t really think they would strike again before consumating their own union.  Nevertheless, yesterday it was Speakeasy joining the party, agreeing to [Read more →]

Regional and metro fiber operator Zayo Bandwidth announced today that it is increasing its investments in Fiber-to-the-Tower.  The company will add Ethernet and TDM backhaul services to hundreds of towers in Wilkes Barre and central Pennsylvania.  The expansion brings the company to about 1700 FTTT locations with 800 under construction, or 2500 when complete.  Those numbers include both standalone towers and cell sites on enterprise buildings, and are up [Read more →]

Quite a few announcements amongst multinational carriers lately, here are a few:

NTT America has a new CEO.  Kazuhiro Gomi will take over from Tetsuro Yamaguchi, who has held the post since 2006.  Mr. Gomi has been climbing the ladder rapidly of late, he was CTO until last June, and then spent a year as COO.  As CEO he takes charge just in time for the [Read more →]

Two weeks ago, Allied Fiber detailed the first stage of its buildout of a new national longhaul fiber network.  The company’s plans have surprised some in the industry, and suggest an evolving view of the economics of intercity fiber.  What has been missing from my articles about Allied Fiber thus far is detailed information on the company’s actual business model, which is mainly because I was still collecting it.  Today we will begin to rectify that omission with an in-depth interview with Allied Fiber’s founder and CEO Hunter Newby: [Read more →]

Today Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:ALU, news, filings) is formally taking the wrappings off of its coherent 100G technology, and taking it commercial, featuring a single carrier 100G over one wavelength.  If there was any doubt that 100G has finally arrived, at least technologically, then it is probably now vanquished.  The new technology is available on Alcatel-Lucent’s 1830 Photonic Service Switch (PSS), and can be deployed alongside 10/40G in an existing fiber plant. [Read more →]

Equipment maker Ciena (NASDAQ:CIEN, news, filings) reported earnings this morning, including about 42 days worth of revenue from Nortel’s former Metro Ethernet Networks division following the closure of the deal in March.  Revenues were $253.5M, of which $53.5M were derived from the acquisition.  Honestly I had no idea where to peg revenue for the quarter, and I doubt I was alone.  In fact, the 13 analysts listed in Yahoo Finance projected revenues spanning a rather impressive range of [Read more →]