Telecom Ramblings

Many eyes have been trained on today’s report by Akamai (NASDAQ:AKAM, news, filings).  The company upset the status quo in the fall by lowering prices and setting off a bit of a pricing war.  Events went better than planned, and in December they unexpectedly offered increased guidance.  But what is really going on in the CDN marketplace has been somewhat opaque until these numbers.  What numbers, you ask?  Oh yeah…Here is a quick table: [Read more →]

Colocation and managed hosting provider Savvis (news, filings) [a subsidiary of CenturyLink (NYSE:CTL, news, filings)] reported Q4 and full year 2009 earnings this morning.  The company took a harder hit than most in the datacenter space during last year’s economic downturn, as churn from large financial customers took hold.  And just a few weeks ago, CEO Phil Koen stepped down.   But in the fourth quarter they seem to have regained some of their operational footing.  Here are the numbers in the context of prior quarters: [Read more →]

Optimum Lightpath, the metro fiber division of Cablevision, announced today that it is offering 40G transport links to its customers, upgradeable to 100G when the time comes.  They will be initially targeting the services at the low-latency driven financial sector in the New York bandwidth market, which is currently the focus of a great deal of attention.  No doubt over the next year or two [Read more →]

Cable giant Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA, news, filings) is apparently buying New Global Telecom (NGT).  While there has been no formal announcement, there is a memo circulating at Comcast about the purchase.  Terms are of course not available, but it’s safe to say that for Comcast this purchase is small relative to its overall bulk.  However, strategically it could be of much greater importance, as they are not [Read more →]

The content markets division of Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) and its Vyvx predecessor have been delivering the Superbowl video feed from the venue to the broadcast studio for over two decades now.  In the past that meant delivering the raw feeds to a production truck outside the stadium, compressing it, and then sending on the smaller, more easily managed feed from there.  This year, however, they will be skipping the truck and delivering raw 1.5Gbps HD feeds via fiber from the stadium in Miami to CBS’s broadcast studio in New York City.  From there they will also [Read more →]

According to a Reuters report, Indian telecommunications giant Reliance Communications is apparently having little luck shopping its Globalcom division since supposedly putting it on the market in mid December.  The deadline for bids has already been extended, and there just haven’t been many potential buyers even showing up to kick the tires.  Of course, a $3B price tag does tend to limit the field substantially to begin with.  Reliance, for its part, says it is not trying to sell these assets – but that is a claim that nobody seems to actually believe.   [Read more →]

Last week, Texas regional and metro provider Alpheus Communications joined the growing list of expansions by fiber-based telecoms in early 2010.  The company has invested in additional fiber in the Houston metro area, adding a major new ring in North and West Harris County.  The fiber passes through the energy and high tech areas along [Read more →]

Southeastern CLEC itcd they announced that it intends to sell $325M in senior secured notes due 2016 to qualified institutional buyers this week.  Then intend to use the proceeds to refinance their senior secured credit facilities, which totaled $307M or so at the end of the third quarter.  The credit facilities will come due in 2013 and 2014 so there was no huge urgency to refinance, and the interest rates are pretty low currently so if anything their interest expenses will rise.  However, the terms are (I believe) fairly [Read more →]

When the issue of Network Neutrality gets discussed in the media, usually we hear from the same cast of characters:  ILECs and Cable MSOs on one side, and the most outspoken content providers on the other.  But there are other voices amongst the competitive service providers that don’t fit that mold.  One such voice is that of Dave Schaeffer, Founder and CEO of Cogent Communications – one of the few fiber operators out there actively [Read more →]

Time to catch up on news that slipped past my nets, something that happens more frequently during earnings season of course.  Here we have three contracts worth mentioning.

Nationwide competitive carrier PAETEC (news, filings) won a software deal at [Read more →]

It has been quite some time since the PR department at Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) has gotten such a good workout.  Yesterday the company’s Content Markets division won an interesting deal with Zolmo to deliver Jamie Oliver “20 Minute Meals” to the iPhone.  They will be providing caching, geo-targeting, and streaming video, amongst other services.  Now, I for one would cringe at propping up my iPhone in the kitchen while I cook, let’s just say I’m not known for maintaining a clean counter and leaving it at that.  But then, I don’t actually [Read more →]

Networking equipment provider Juniper Networks (NASDAQ:JNPR, news, filings) announced its earnings today for Q4 and the full year 2009, and if there were any doubts about the improving environment in the sector then there are fewer today.  Revenues of $941.5M, up 2% from the same quarter last year and up an impressive 14% from the third quarter.  Non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.32 were up from $0.23 in the prior quarter and matched the performance of the same quarter last year.  Both numbers were well above [Read more →]

We have been seeing expansions across the competitive fiber space as companies kick off 2010. Here are a few more that I hadn’t gotten to yet.

Fiberlight gave details of its expansion in the Baltimore area that I had heard was underway.  The company is constructing an additional 100 route miles of fiber to their network, expanding beyond the downtown loops.  Laurel, Columbia, Elkridge, and Greenbelt will all benefit from the additional connectivity.  Along with last year’s new loop out to Culpeper VA, [Read more →]

Telecommunications equipment challenger Infinera (NASDAQ:INFN, news, filings) reported fourth quarter earnings yesterday after the bell.  Revenues of $90.2M were up 8% sequentially from the prior quarter, and 5% from the same quarter last year, and the number beat analyst estimates.  Net loss per share of $0.07 was also a penny better than expected.  Infinera offered Q1 guidance for revenues of $92-94M and a net loss of $0.10-0.11, which were probably both larger than expected.  The unnamed internet content provider that was mentioned in the company’s Q3 call became [Read more →]

Joining the 2010 expansion parade, XO Holdings (news, filings) has made a move of its own.  The company announced today an 800 mile expansion of its fiber backbone into southern Texas, adding a loop through Corpus Christie, McAllen, Harlingen, Laredo, and Victoria.  The company is also adding a new international gateway at the Mexican border in McAllen, which along with its other gateways to Latin America in San Diego, Los Angeles, and Miami, will improve the company’s connectivity to the region. [Read more →]

TDS Telecom announced today the completion of the first phase of its 10G interstate IP and transport network.  The newly built network hooks up the company’s broadband markets in 30 states.  The network initially consists of some 45 10G wavelengths, of which at least 25 are being provided by Level 3.   Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) also expects to be providing voice services as well to TDS in a growing relationship. [Read more →]

Telecommunications giant Verizon (NYSE:VZ, news, filings) reported it’s Q4 and full year results this morning, opening earnings season with … well not with a bang but not a whimper either.  When you’re as big and diverse as these guys are, I guess it’s hard to sneak up on anyone. Revenues of $27.1B were in-line, as were adjusted earnings per share of $0.54.  Wireless subscriber additions of 2.2M were higher than expected, but most of that came through wholesale.  Total wireline subscribers ‘shockingly’ continued to [Read more →]

East coast CLEC Cavalier announced today that it has purchased Net Telcos, which operates a data center in Richmond VA.  The facility is one that Cavalier already provides service to, and they intend to use it to jump start its entry into the managed services business in the mid-Atlantic region.   Further details from this TelephonyOnline article make it clear that the company is positioning itself for the coming of [Read more →]

Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) announced this morning that it has connected to CENX, the Carrier Ethernet exchange started by Nan Chen of the Metro Ethernet Forum and opened for business in November.  The connection will allow Level 3 to service more customers more quickly than before, assuming of course that the exchange gains critical mass amongst network providers.  It was just a week ago that it was Verizon (NYSE:VZ, news, filings) Business joining CENX to extend its own Ethernet reach.  Given the attention from both next generation and traditional [Read more →]

I have added another page to my longhaul maps collection for Latin America, i.e. everything from Mexico and the Bahamas on southward to Cape Horn.  There tends to be a greater dependence on submarine versus terrestrial fiber in much of this region – fiber backbones over the Andes and through the Amazon are rare except for between Argentina and Chile.  There tend to be national or even simply regional networks strung together with submarine capacity, with Mexico being the notable [Read more →]

Over the weekend I rolled out a new layout for the website.  Artistically there were some minor color changes, but the main differences revolve around the three boxes at the top.  Basically, the main menu bar was getting crowded and new visitors would have to dig quite hard to find things like the map collections and metro fiber list.  Here is a quick summary: [Read more →]

For the first Telecom Ramblings reader poll of 2010, I thought I’d invert the question I asked last summer and see who the telecom community thinks is the likeliest buyer of more fiber.  For this poll, I’m looking only at publicly traded companies that own or directly operate a substantial amount of fiber:

[Read more →]

FiberTower ftwr is embarking on a major expansion of its fiber footprint using dark fiber from metro fiber specialist FiberLight.  The transaction covers some 4000 miles of fiber right now across eight markets, with options for 8000 more miles over the next 6 years.  Fibertower combines metro loops with its spectrum holdings to develop hybrid wireless backhaul systems. [Read more →]