Telecom Ramblings

This week’s big event was of course the Google/Verizon network neutrality proposal, which took heavy fire from the network neutrality camp – some seeing Google’s action as a betrayal.  Was it?  Well that depends on what one wants from the whole argument: victory, policy, or the argument itself.  Yes, there are those who would prefer (consciously or unconsciously) to leave network neutrality as a battlefield indefinitely, as it provides a useful us-versus-them division with easy access to the press.  In a very real sense, Google did turn its back on that group by attempting any sort of compromise at all.   [Read more →]

Integra Telecom is adding 121 route miles to its fiber network in Denver, looking to take advantage of growth opportunities.  The $2.1M metro expansion will allow the company to offer enterprise customers a more robust set of network offerings.  Since restructuring its debt last year, Integra has been gradually returning to a growth footing.  It has also been increasing its emphasis on its on-net footprint lately, most of which it picked up in the [Read more →]

Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) has had three PRs this week:  a statement on the Verizon/Google proposal, a contract expansion with IPNETZONE, and connectivity into BATS Europe.

Regarding the Verizon/Google proposal, Level 3 was ‘encouraged’ that the two were able to find agreement on as much as they did, but nevertheless was doubtful that allowing last mile access providers to create paid priority data services was a good idea.  No big surprise there, or anywhere in the statement really.  Mainly I think the network operator and those like them are looking for [Read more →]

When you’re as big as Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO, news, filings) and your CEO has a reputation for a very optimistic view of the future of bandwidth, and the market depends on you to to balance the forces of pessimism, it doesn’t take much in the way of weak results to cause trouble.  In its fiscal Q4 results, Cisco beat earnings per share expectations by a penny, and came in with revenues of $10.8B – just below expectations of $10.9B.  It was above guidance, but in the strange game of Cisco expectations it was below par.  But really it was the forecast that has spooked people the most. [Read more →]

Yesterday, datacenter operator CoreSite announced two economic news services, Need to Know News and Rapidata, as customers in its facility at 1275 K Street in Washington DC.  No, not Ashburn or Reston, but rather just a mile from the government agencies that issue the economic data that the financial markets often hinge on in the city itself.  That proximity to the data plus connectivity to various fiber routes means that the news can reach the right ears in New York and Chicago more quickly. [Read more →]

Catching up once again on various metro fiber news around the country:

Down in Florida, regional metro fiber builder FiberLight turned out a customized network solution for Sago Networks.  Fiberlight deployed a 10G DWDM network hooking up the internet solutions company’s two Miami data centers, the Terrmark NAP of the Americas facility, and Peak 10 in just 24 hours.  FiberLight has thus far ignored the metro fiber M&A frenzy, and has instead been [Read more →]

Earlier this summer, we briefly posted a link to a long presentation and discussion by Allied Fiber’s Hunter Newby the Internet Society of New Yolk but that link turned out to be premature.  Well, they did it right this time, so for those interested in an hour’s worth of detail on just what Allied Fiber is up to in the world of dark fiber, here it is – with video even: [Read more →]

Ok, so you’ve been wondering where Telecom Ramblings has been with this Google/Verizon public policy statement, the leak to the NY Times, the denials, and the eventual announcement.  Well, to be honest I just don’t see much of a story here, just a constant rehashing of existing ideas in the context of diametrically opposed positions, a threat of something ambiguous happening that isn’t actually a regulatory framework, new law, or, well, anything of substance, and eventually a self-interested proposal by two players that nobody likes much.  But maybe it’s just me.  So here’s a quick poll for readers.  What do you think? [Read more →]

As regular as clockwork, TW Telecom (NASDAQ:TWTC, news, filings) has posted its second quarter financial results, showing solid revenue growth.  There was perhaps a bit stronger acceleration on the revenue front, however costs increased in parallel which held down EBITDA growth.  Since I have been looking for an acceleration in top line growth from the company, I am hopeful that they are gearing up for such a growth phase.  As always, here is a quick tabular summary of their results in the context of prior quarters: [Read more →]

Several items have passed by on the wires lately worth a mention:

Just this morning, rcn-metro announced a win in the financial vertical with Monadnock Capital Management, for whom they will be providing Ethernet connectivity between its Philadelphia trading operations and key financial exchanges in New York and New Jersey.  Monadnock’s President, Daniel C. Bigelow, mentioned the time-sensitivity of [Read more →]

There were two interesting network security announcements this morning aimed at the federal sector:

International network opertor glbc has partnered with Bivio Networks to deliver managed security to US Government customers.  Amongst other products, Global Crossing will leverage Bivio’s Continuous Threat Monitoring Solution.  They have been aggressively expanding their efforts in the federal marketplace this summer, having [Read more →]

Here at Telecom Ramblings, we have followed closely the rapid development of the Ethernet Exchange from the drawing board just twelve months ago into a competitive new marketplace with at least three entrants so far.  The latest of these of course is the combined effort of Telx and Neutral Tandem that was announced in June.  Telx has been focusing on interconnections between networks for a long time, and therefore their move into a similar business for Ethernet networks seems like a natural one.  With us today to offer Telx’s perspective on Ethernet exchanges and shed a bit more light on its plans going forward is the company’s CEO, Eric Shepcaro. [Read more →]

Metro fiber operator abvt continued its rapid growth through the second quarter.  Revenues, EBITDA, EBITDA Margin, and earnings per share all came in ahead of expectations.  In fact, the company’s guidance for the year now was too light, and therefore they had to raise it.  Here is a quick tabular summary: [Read more →]

The last few days have been a deluge of Q2 2010 earnings reports, here are a few comments on several of them:

Competitive service provider cbey reported Q2 revenues of $111.8M, up from $110.5M in the prior quarter.  That was a bit [Read more →]

Competitive carrier PAETEC (news, filings) reported earnings today.  The company has spent the economic storm mostly treading water when it comes to revenue, while striving to increase EBITDA margins through cost savings.  Those overall trends didn’t change much this quarter, which is summarized below in context of the prior quarters: [Read more →]

Cogent Communications (NASDAQ:CCOI, news, filings) has been pretty quiet lately, with the only press releases this year being the obligatory announcements of presentations at conferences or of course earnings reports.  Hence I was curious to get a glimpse of where they are at with today’s Q2 earnings release.  Here is a quick glance at the numbers in context of prior quarters: [Read more →]

Despite the media drumbeat of how their WiMAX buildout is too slow, clwr continues to outpace projections.  In today’s Q2 earnings release, the company said it added 722K net subscribers, of whom 595K were from their wholesale partners.  That’s big number, bringing their total at the end of the quarter to almost 1.7M subscribers and prompting them to forecast 3M by the end of the year.  The explosive growth in wholesale subscribers can be seen from the simple table:  [Read more →]

It’s clear now that the preferred route for most carriers into the CDN business is to partner with a pure-play provider.  Yesterday it was Telus dipping its toes into the water via a partnership with EdgeCast.  The Canadian service provider will now be able to offer CDN services to content providers north of the border.  For a secondary market like this, such a partnership [Read more →]

It’s the march of the big rural ILECs this morning.

In the wake of its takeover of all those rural Verizon assets, the details of Frontier Communications (NYSE:FTR, news, filings) performance in Q2 aren’t all that relevant.  Nevertheless, revenues of $516M were somewhat stronger than expected, though of course that was down from $532M in the same quarter last year due to those ever-present [Read more →]

There were several M&A events in the past two days that are worth looking at:

TelePacific, a CLEC based in California, is buying the SMB customer base of neighbor O1 Communications, amounting to some 1000 customers.  Also switching hands in the deal is O1’s datacenter in Sacramento, which TelePacific will leverage to enhance its MPLS portfolio.  For its part, O1 will [Read more →]

According to Phone+, Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) has realigned its North American sales leadership.  Rather than operating North America in three groups: wholesale, content, and business, there will now be a single sales organization with six channels:  large enterprise, wholesale, federal, content, mid-market and indirect.  Jeff Tench, who was head of the business markets group, appears to be out of the picture.  A quick look at Level 3’s management page says that isn’t the only change.  [Read more →]

In their earnings call last week, Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) mentioned that they have been re-evaluating their colocation business.  Specifically, in response to an analyst question about their plans for their colocation footprint, CEO James Crowe made the following comment:

“This is a matter of some strategic importance.  We’re doing a review that is largely completed.  We will make some decisions here in the coming months.  Our data center business would be one of the larger colocation/data center businesses in the industry if it were a standalone.  It’s a big opportunity for us.  We want to make sure we take advantage of it properly.”

Since then, I have received [Read more →]

Another month, another bunch of cities with access to WiMAX.  clwr today announced its expansion into several new markets across the country.

First of all, they added Wilmington, Delaware to a growing regional network that includes Philadelphia as well as large parts of [Read more →]