Interoute's Fabulous 60Gbps Rescue

In a press release today, European network operator Interoute Interoute (news) touted its use of Infinera (NASDAQ:INFN, news, filings) gear to turn up 60Gbps of bandwidth over a 1200km route in just 48 hours.  The rush job apparently, was to rescue a customer from a tough situation.  Now that’s very interesting, and I congratulate Interoute for its quick feet and Infinera for the performance of its gear – I have to admit, that’s fast!  But of course even more interesting to a guy like me is who the customer might have been.  Here’s the quote:

In this case, one of Interoute’s large global customers had acquired another telecom operator which already owned a large international optical network. After the acquisition, the unprecedented daily volume of data and IP traffic now utilizing the route highlighted the fact that this network was in need of immediate and substantial upgrade. Customers were already beginning to experience quality of service issues.

Hmmm, lots of clues in there.  How many networks have been acquired recently which have 1200km routes that could have been in such a state of disrepair? Ones with routes that must overlap well with Interoute? Where the acquirer is a large global player, but probably with minimal European fiber assets?  It can’t be many.

Now, my knowledge of European networks is less extensive than those in North America, but I’ll make a guess or two anyway.  It’s not likely to be any of the major US based telecoms, they haven’t been shopping for fiber in Europe in a while.  Maybe it was the Vanco network, and the customer therefore would be Reliance Globalcom which purchased it this year. Vanco was a virtual network operator, it leased everything – but alot of it was between London, Paris, Frankfurt, etc. That Vanco’s leased infrastructure may have been neglected as it imploded earlier this year is not hard to imagine. Or perhaps it is… Actually, that’s my only guess so far. Anyone suggestions?

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Categories: Internet Backbones · Mergers and Acquisitions · Telecom Equipment