Telecom Ramblings

African fiber infrastructure is having quite a week. Following quickly on the heels of Liquid Telecom’s completed east-west route across central Africa, Orange has announced plans at AfricaCom to build out some significant fiber of its own in West Africa. [Read more →]

One new partnership, two new PoPs and a metro fiber acquisition: [Read more →]

Packets looking to cross Africa from east to west now have a new option other than going the long way around via subsea cables. Liquid Telecom has unveiled a new terrestrial route crossing the continent through some of the most difficult and politically dicey terrain on the planet. [Read more →]

For those expecting a quick resolution to the ongoing dispute between Windstream (and its creditors) and Uniti Group, yesterday was a bit of a setback. Ok, well I doubt few were expecting a ‘quick resolution’, but hey. The mediation process the two were undergoing has been suspended, as the parties have apparently reached an impasse. [Read more →]

A few items from the start of this week: [Read more →]

We may see an independent Global Cloud Xchange emerge from the downfall of India’s Reliance Communications. The conglomerate’s international subsea and cloud connectivity arm announced late last week that it has a new plan for reorganization that will see the company emerge from the bankruptcy process as an independent company. [Read more →]

The wholesale voice business doesn’t get much attention these days, but plenty of revenue still flows through it and many of the companies within it are lean and hungry.  One such company is Peerless Network, which has recently been moving into the enterprise voice market.  With us today to talk about Peerless Network’s approach to the voice business is co-founder and CEO John Barnicle.  John has been in the telecom business for three decades now, starting with the local telephone monopolies and co-founding both Focal Communications and Neutral Tandem before this.  [Read more →]

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Steffen Paulus, Director of Portfolio Marketing at Nokia

In a recent discussion with Nokia, John Abraham, principal analyst at Analysys Mason, argued that many service providers are not well equipped to monetize 5G-enabled use cases and business models. [Read more →]

A few interesting items to note today: [Read more →]

A few quick takes from midweek: one new IX opportunity, two new data center tenants, and a UC deployment: [Read more →]

With us today for another round of talk about the fiber business over in Europe is Brady Rafuse, CEO of euNetworks.  It has been 10 years since Brady took over as CEO of euNetworks, and over that time the company has grown from humble origins into one of the most dynamic, independent, pan-European infrastructure providers in the market.  This week the company announced the delivery of Super Highway 1, a brand new and fully diverse fiber route from Dublin to London complete with a new subsea link across the Irish Sea. [Read more →]

A few items worth noting from around the world and around the industry: [Read more →]

The pan-European network builder and operator euNetworks raised the curtain this morning on the project it has spent the better part of this year on: building out some brand new fiber across northern England and under the Irish Sea. Super Highway 1 connects Dublin with both London and Lowestoft via a fully diverse route. [Read more →]

In the five short years since its founding, ZenFi Networks has built out one of the densest networks out there.  The company’s plans for a C-RAN network design targeted at very dense metro connectivity seem quite prescient now as the entire internet infrastructure sector braces for the arrival of 5G.  The LinkNYC deal gave them an anchor customer to deploy an innovative network across all 5 boroughs of New York, and their merger with Cross River Fiber has taken them far out into Northern New Jersey.  With us today to talk about ZenFi Network’s ongoing buildouts, their “horizontal tower model” and future projects is CEO and co-founder Ray LaChance.  [Read more →]

Three bits of colo expansion news, each at a different stage of the process: [Read more →]

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Mattias Fridström, Chief Evangelist at Telia Carrier

Last fall, IBM cemented the legitimacy of hybrid cloud when it announced a record $34 billion deal to acquire Red Hat in the largest software acquisition ever, and IBM CEO Ginni Rometty projected that revenue for the hybrid cloud could reach $1 trillion by 2020. Now that hybrid cloud and multi-cloud strategies are here to stay, what does this mean for the wholesale carriers, cloud and communication service providers that provide connectivity to their customers and, ultimately, the end users of these environments? [Read more →]

A few bytes of news worth catching up on: [Read more →]

Lots of news this week, here’s a quick look at several significant events worth keeping an eye on: [Read more →]

The Digital Realty dropped a consolidation bomb yesterday along with its quarterly earnings. The giant data center REIT will be merging with the European data center provider Interxion in an all stock deal. [Read more →]

The Midwestern fiber network provider Everstream is expanding into a new market. This morning they followed through on their promise of a substantial new network build throughout Milwaukee, Wisconsin. [Read more →]

Telia Carrier has added a new fiber route to its US network, adding some unique diversity on a core leg. The international arm of the Swedish giant has put together a new option between the key nodes of Atlanta and Ashburn that takes a western route through the Appalachians and the markets of Chattanooga, Knoxville, Roanoke, and Charlottesville. [Read more →]

Here’s a quick look at some news from late last week and the start of this one from around the world worth noting: [Read more →]

Software Defined Networking has taken the infrastructure world by storm, and its most public face has been SD-WAN.  But beyond merely replacing legacy MPLS networks, SD-WAN is being called upon to handle new challenges from technologies like IoT.  With us today to talk about this intersection of new technologies is Martin Bosshardt, Founding Partner of Open Systems.  Open Systems is an SD-WAN provider based in Zurich and Silicon Valley that focuses on delivering end-to-end, fully integrated SD-WAN to the global enterprise market. [Read more →]