Telecom Ramblings

A project we heard about earlier this year in our Industry Spotlight article with Tilson’s Josh Broder has come further into the sunlight. Last year, the PTC awarded a 25-year contract to Plenary Broadband Infrastructure to develop network infrastructure along the transportation artery. Construction on that project is now underway, with Tilson’s asset-owning affiliate Tilson Infrastructure taking on the task of operating and commercializing the asset. [Read more →]

Vantage Data Centers has plans for an expansion into some new territory. The hyperscale data center provider says it has begun construction on a new campus in Johannesburg, South Africa.  It’s not a minor buildout either. The company has a total investment of $1B in mind. [Read more →]

Regional network operators still remain largely below the radar in many areas, but they are getting more and more attention from investors. Part of that is because of their potential for the FTTH build outs that the financial community is finding increasingly interesting. One such operator is Horizon, which has been putting substantial effort behind FTTH buildouts adjacent to its regional footprint in and around Ohio. With us today is the company’s CEO, Jim Capuano, who joined the company last summer, to talk about just what the company is up to and why. [Read more →]

Five bits of infrastructure news covering five very different international markets – three expansions, an upgrade, and an M&A: [Read more →]

Bulk Infrastructure has announced a new transatlantic cable project in the North Atlantic.  They have tapped WFN Strategies to commence a feasibility study for the new cable system.  And by north, they do mean north. [Read more →]

The seabed of the Atlantic Ocean looks like it will have another big cable system installed sometime in the next few years.  NEC says it has been contracted by Facebook to build the new cable system between the US and Europe, although the details of where this cable will actually land on either end was not mentioned. [Read more →]

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Magnus Olden, CTO at Domos

When Domos CTO Magnus Olden took the stage at the Broadband Forum a while back he knew his talk wasn’t going to sit well with many in the room – career telecom folks used to talking about bandwidth and broadband in common terms – namely the all encompassing Mbps measure. After all, and for going on decades, everyone from FTTH teams to the folks in finance have made that the very basis of their business cases for expanding networks, building out fiber infrastructure and upselling consumer connectivity tiers to consumers. In an industry where speaking truth to power can result in so many thrown tomatoes, gongs or worse, Olden’s gambit didn’t come without its risks.

Here’s his story. [Read more →]

An organic expansion, two vendor wins, and a data center M&A: [Read more →]

This sponsored thought leadership article was authored by Sean Baillie, Executive Vice President, Connectivity Strategy at QTS Realty Trust

While the unprecedented global pandemic has paused our lives for more than a year and a half now, it has not slowed the massive digitization of data, often referred to as digital transformation, that is now a primary challenge as businesses evolve their digital strategies. [Read more →]

In some metro fiber news, Comcast Business unveiled plans to spend a significant amount of resources in my own backyard. And when I say these are in my backyard, I mean they might actually have to dig in my backyard. The cable MSO’s business connectivity division will be spending a total of $26M to expand its fiber footprint in Philadelphia and New Jersey over the next two years. [Read more →]

A few expansion plans and customer wins from around the marketplace at midweek to note: [Read more →]

DataBank has some major expansion plans for the New York City metro area. Yesterday the national data center operator revealed the acquisition of 34 acres of land on which it plans to build a new colocation campus. [Read more →]

A few items from around the industry to catch up with: [Read more →]

Arcadian Infracom has lined up the financial resources required to make its longhaul fiber buildout plans into reality. The retirement fund TIAA and its investment manager Nuveen have signed on as a partner to help fund the company’s projects with a commitment of up to $140M. [Read more →]

Some fiber has changed hands out in the Midwest. Great Plains Communications has announced the completion of the acquisition of USA Communications, a fiber provider based in Kearney, Nebraska. [Read more →]

Zayo has announced the completion of three of the longhaul projects it has been working on over the past few years. The fiber builder and operator has been working on its intercity footprint on a route-by-route basis in recent years, often with the backing of hyperscalers looking for diversity of infrastructure. [Read more →]

By Guy Matthews, Editor of NetReporter

There is an increasingly important link between 5G, IoT and edge compute, with each having implications for the success of the other. So believes Jeremiah Caron, Global Head of Research & Analysis with the Technology Group of independent analyst firm GlobalData. [Read more →]

Two bits of FTTH news from opposite ends of the spectrum, some SD-WAN, and a vendor win up north: [Read more →]

Two bits of submarine cable news, and one bit of terrestrial dark fiber news: [Read more →]

A few interesting items, both domestic and international to catch up with: [Read more →]

Yesterday Orange offered up an update on the Amitié cable system. The 6,600km transatlantic fiber project has officially come ashore on the Gironde coast near Bordeaux. The project used horizontal directional drilling 20 meters under the beach to avoid harming the local ecosystem. [Read more →]

In between the worlds of cloud computing and big bandwidth lies a complicated and rapidly changing environment that many enterprises barely understand.  That has created an opportunity for managed service providers to step in and make it all work.  One provider that has been taking on that challenge is Unitas Global.  With us today to talk about Unitas Global’s approach to serving up internet infrastructure to hungry enterprises is Founder and CTO Grant Kirkwood.  Grant has been part of the internet infrastructure entrepreneurial scene since starting his own hosting company back in the 90s, and then later founding Mzima which eventually became part of GTT by way of the PacketExchange deal. [Read more →]

A new company launch, a product launch, a global channel partner, and some FTTx: [Read more →]