Telecom Ramblings

At the end of the Streaming Video West conference, there were multiple reports that consolidation in the industry was not just around the corner, but even imminent.  Well, I let that sit a while because, well, I’ve heard it before.  And I don’t really think it’s going to happen that way. [Read more →]

Today Pacnet became the latest customer of Infinera, selecting their DTN for upgrades to their land network in preparation for their part of the Unity cable (called EAC Pacific) when it comes online.  Not too many have been watching, but Pacnet has been making lots of moves this summer.  Pacnet who, you say? [Read more →]

So we weren’t able to solve the riddle posed by Dan Caruso as to who Zayo’s 11th acquisition was.  The answer?  Metro fiber assets in Phoenix, Dallas, San Antonio, Chicago, Cincinnati, and the tri-cities area of Tennessee from Citynet.  Wait, Citynet?  [Read more →]

At long last, Sprint’s XOHM exists!  The WiMAX network went live today in Baltimore.  Now, will people flock to it?  I think it depends entirely on how well it works, i.e. how reliable the speeds are and how solid the coverage area is.  Muni wifi failed largely because it, well, sucked.  DC and Chicago are next in line presumably soon, and Clearwire is due to start opening markets too.  The era of WiMAX is finally upon us, while there were a few early starts from smaller companies this marks the entry by the big players at last. [Read more →]

Dan Caruso, who leads Zayo and writes bearonbusiness.com, has challenged the readers of Telecom Ramblings to guess Zayo’s 11th acquisition!  Well, we can’t turn that down can we?  Here are the clues: [Read more →]

I’ve added several more telecom blogs to my blogroll, each offering a non-USA perspective to many of the issues I ramble on about here.  One is relatively new, the others have been around a while – it’s just that my tastes are widening.  [Read more →]

Level 3’s CDN will be handling the streaming for Fox all four of the 2008 Presidential debates, according to a press release earlier today.   This marks the second high profile win for Level 3 in the arena of politics, following up on the successful Democratic Convention coverage.  [Read more →]

Apparently, NTT’s customers in Japan are also getting a usage cap.   But it’s quite different from Comcasts 250Gb/month limit.  NTT’s limit is a) daily, b) 30Gb, and c) upstream only.  Who the heck uploads 30Gb/day?  Apparently some P2P nodes will do that if you let them and happen to be hooked up to the sort of monster 100mbps fiber connections you can get in Japan.  [Read more →]

Nyquist Capital has a fantastic article on the prospects of 40G technology and the underlying trends, I recommend a read.  A dynamic I’d tack on is one brought up by a reader of this blog in a private message that has been rattling around in [Read more →]

A few months ago, I spent a whole post detailing the obscure anti-dilution hedge that Level 3 bought from Merrill Lynch back in 2004. D-day for that arrangement was to be this December, with the prize for Level 3 varying between $0 and $175M, and it looked alot more like zero with the stock price at $3.  Well, that’s not how it turned out, apparently the two are unwinding the contract. [Read more →]

In just 6-7 weeks, the FCC will run up against its latest deadline for dealing with intercarrier compensation.  Back in July, they were given until November 5 by a federal court to address the issue.  Over on the Global Crossing blogs, Paul Kouroupas has an excellent post today detailing in plain language not only the extent of stupidity of the current system, but why it hurts everyone in the industry to leave it as is – from ILEC to CLEC to RLEC.  [Read more →]

Level 3 today announced an expansion of services in Canada, adding both transport and IP services in Toronto and Montreal and transport services in Montreal.  They had already sold transport in Toronto, yet despite having a loop through the area since the original Level 3 network was built, they have barely ventured [Read more →]

In what has easily been the most surprising result from the reader polls I have run on this site, when asked ‘Which IP network will enter the CDN market next’, the answer “Global Crossing” has run a strong second place amongst readers of this blog.  The leader, Verizon, was a no-brainer of course.  No other company got more than two votes, including [Read more →]

Level 3 Business Markets announced a contract today with Bostwick Laboratories, providing them with on-net services including internet access, VoIP, and enhanced network services.  The deal is a welcome one for Level 3, which is still seeking to prove to the market that its enterprise division has legs.  Medical data infrastructure deals like this are the bread and butter of TW Telecom, and Level 3 would like to start making its own name in the sector. [Read more →]

glbc has hired John Kritzmacher as its next CFO, starting October 1.  Kritzmacher was CFO of Lucent until its merger with Alcatel, and had previously worked his way up through the AT&T heirarchy before that.  He replaces Jean Mandeville, who deserves a lot of credit for dragging the company from what was in 2004 – a complete basketcase – to where it is today – closing in on [Read more →]

Comcast filed a description of its new congestion management system a few days ago.  This is what will replace their previous system which throttled P2P traffic.  Of course, they backed off that plan a while back, then were told to back off that plan by the FCC, and have appealed that ruling – apparently to give their lawyers something to do.  But nevertheless, they have what they call a [Read more →]

Telegeography reported today that the transition to VoIP in Europe is moving very rapidly now.  At year end 2007 there were 25.3M voip users, and by year end 2008 that number is expected to exceed 37M.  Penetration rates are all over the map though.  In France 43% of households are now using VoIP, while in Spain that number is only 2%.  But wow, 43%?   That’s huge! [Read more →]

Silicon Valley Insider speculated Friday that Ebay may be looking to sell Skype, a thought that was developed further by both Rich Tehrani and Andy Abramson. It certainly would be an exciting move at a time when money is not exactly flowing freely.  The potential buyers [Read more →]

What do investors say when a company overpromises and then sells stock or converts into the rally?  If it’s his own holdings, they complain loudly.  If it’s company stock or a convertible bond, some will grant that he was just making the case to get the best price for his shareholders while others may feel betrayed.  But what about the opposite case?  What happens when [Read more →]

Yesterday after the close of the markets, Cogent filed an 8-K with the SEC .  Now sometimes when filings come out late on a friday they’re bad news, but not this time.  Alongside an update on their stock buyback program, the company repurchased $20M face value of its 1% convertible notes for $9.9M.  That’s under 50 cents on the dollar.  I haven’t seen [Read more →]

Once again, Dave Rusin over on Telecom Straight Shooter has taken on the issue of forbearance, arguing forcefully against most of the current crop of CLECs.  He’d like us all to step back from regulation and let the market produce the business case for laying fiber to all those buildings.  Very much the laissez faire purist approach, certainly, and quite appealing when put that way. [Read more →]

TMobile today announced who won the backhaul contracts for 6 of the 27 top markets in which they are supposed to roll out their new GSM network next month.  If you’ve followed this blog, you’ll notice that three of the four are private companies that have shown up in my research on metro fiber footprints, the fourth being a cable company.  Congrats to all four, these deals mark a turning point in that one no longer has to go to the ILEC in these locations – that infrastructure will now be in place on independent fiber. [Read more →]

In a filing with the SEC today, Limelight announced they have come to a settlement with Two-Way Media over the patent suit filed by the latter in April.  The patent in question was an old one from 1996, and Limelight joins Level 3 (via Cable & Wireless long ago) as a licensee of the patent.  Two-way is apparently still suing Akamai and AT&T over the same patent, which sure does seem to have legs. [Read more →]