Telecom Ramblings

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 →]

Back in April, I posted about the 2020 Project, in which the Swedish telecommunications giant sponsored a group of videos featuring the thoughts of select thinkers about how communications would change the world over the next decade.  Well, the latest video is of none other than Vint Cerf, who should need no introduction to readers of this blog – except perhaps those few that still think Al Gore invented the internet.  With no further ado: [Read more →]

Competitive service provider XO Holdings (news, filings) has announced two interesting deals this week.

Yesterday it was a contract with Dialink, a provider of VoIP services to small and medium enterprises in northern California.  XO will helping with more than VoIP though, apparently Dialink’s customers are frequently requiring more than T1 services and therefore [Read more →]

According to reports, Indian telecommunications giant Reliance Communications has approved a plan to sell a minority stake in itself.  The rumored names include AT&T (NYSE:T, news, filings), Dubai’s Etisalat, and Africa’s MTN Group, but apparently the only one on this list actually far along in talks is Etisalat which is said to be eyeing a 26% stake for something in the neighborhood of $4B.  Other strategic [Read more →]

Few applications have the potential to burn as much bandwidth as telepresence, and Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO, news, filings) continues to push the technology forward.  Today at InfoComm the company announced a smörgåsbord of advances, many of which derive from the integration of Tandberg.  One of the most interesting bits to me is the continuing work on interoperability.  Cisco has now implemented its recently open-sourced Telepresence Interoperability Protocol (TIP) on its Tandberg Telepresence Server.  Cisco isn’t the only one working on interoperability, today AT&T also [Read more →]

Transport equipment maker Infinera (NASDAQ:INFN, news, filings) and the Japanese telecommunications giant NTT Communications (NYSE:NTT, news, filings) announced today at Interop Tokyo a successful 100 Gigabit Ethernet demonstration over a live network in Makuhari, outside Tokyo.  The 100GbE stream was handed off from an IP router to a prototype Infinera 100GbE module containing Opnext IEEE-compliant transceivers. [Read more →]

Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) had two interesting announcements for its Vyvx product line today.  First, it updated its local switching services, now allowing its customers to transmit video feeds between local loops in the same market, whether they are purchased through Level 3 Vyvx or not.  New rates will be available in some 50 markets, including London.  And HD loops of 1.5Gbps and 3Gbps will be initially in a dozen major markets with more on the way.  It’s nice to see the Vyvx product lines taking advantage of [Read more →]

The Ethernet exchange movement continues to gain converts.  Today Intellifiber announced that it has joined CENX with an initial connection in New York.  Intellifiber has about just over 1000 on-net buildings, but the company brings some 100K buildings to the table which it can address with Ethernet-over-copper (EoC) technology.  Most of those are in the mid-Atlantic region where their footprint is deepest, especially when it comes to [Read more →]

According to Telegeography, prices have been amazingly stable on the New York to London route, with the cost of a 10Gbps wavelength falling just 3% over the past year.  Seeing that number in single digits is quite a sight after the past decade of steady and sometimes torrential price erosion.  It is perhaps another indication that despite the arrival of 40G, carriers can only get so far with electronics upgrades and no longer view [Read more →]

Over the past week or two there have been several news items in the metro space that managed to slip past my nets, so let’s play a bit of catch-up.

NYC area metro specialist Lexent Metro Connect is expanding further into New Jersey.  First they are planning to pull fiber into Telx 100 Delawanna facility in Clifton, which has emerged as a key link in the low latency financial networking chain.  But Lexent is also heading further south, [Read more →]

Rumor has it that company-wide layoffs are about to hit XO Holdings (news, filings), an event which would put the COO Wayne M. Rehberger’s announced departure earlier this week in an entirely new light.  The company may actually announce the workforce action publicly on Friday, but I’m not holding my breath given that XO usually only tells the outside world what it is legally required to.  The full scope of the layoffs are not yet clear, but internal rumors peg them as high as [Read more →]

A few news items in the metro fiber space:

Optimum Lightpath continues to expand its network into key financial centers.  Today at the CBX event they announced that they have pulled fiber into the Telx colocation and interconnection facility in Clifton NJ, 100 Delawanna Avenue.  The expansion will help [Read more →]

Colocation and interconnection provider Telx is formally unveiling its Ethernet Exchange platform today at its CBX event.  Over the next nine months, the company will open interconnection points in seven datacenters nationwide, with the first customers as part of a charter program in the third quarter.  The first locations will be [Read more →]

I love the outrage.  I mean, for the media and blogosphere to act shocked and hurt when they’ve been preparing for over a year for some wireless carrier to try this – it’s hard man, real hard.  So AT&T is finally going to try its hand at bandwidth caps for its 3G wireless plans, and unsurprisingly they are deflecting the blame onto the people who love their product the most err I mean waste the most bandwidth.  Lower prices for the good, decent users who love having bandwidth at their fingertips but use it sparingly, and higher prices for the evil, gluttonous, bandwidth hogs who ruin it for the rest.  Ok, well maybe they didn’t quite say it that way, but still…   [Read more →]

Several news items lately that are worthy of note:

Clearwire continues to advance, and this week they formally began service in Kansas City and central Washington DC, and they extended their Baltimore coverage to 725 square miles.  In DC, coverage for the wider metro area will apparently follow over the next few months.  Once complete though, WiMAX will be available [Read more →]