Yesterday was Independence Day in the US of course, but that doesn’t mean that nothing happened but fireworks and hot dogs elsewhere. Here’s a quick roundup of telecom and internet infrastructure news from the likes of Facebook, Verizon, Ericsson, and Equinix over the last day or two:
According to Commsday, Facebook has signed on as an investor in a submarine cable: the Asia Pacific Gateway. It’s an intriguing move, reminding me of Google’s role in the Unity cable. But Facebook’s capacity on APG between Southeast Asia and Japan is a bit futher afield, and one wonders just what they’re up to. Facebook has a vast network of course, but generally not at the fiber level as far as I can tell. There is probably more Asian infrastructure news for Facebook coming later this year.
Verizon (NYSE:VZ, news, filings) won a three year global WAN deal with Norwegian-based Hydro. Hydro is a multinational aluminum supplier with 23,000 employees spread across operations. 40 countries. Verizon will be managing a WAN with integrated security, remote access, firewall, and professional services. This one’s a takeaway, not a renewal – though I’m not sure who had it prior.
Ericsson won an interesting outsourcing contract down in Portugal. ZON Multimedia has selected them for a two year managed services contract operating and maintaining the company’s IT data centers, and more specifically optimizing their IS/IT systems overall. ZON operates a national fiber network in Portugal whose map I’m still looking for.
Just before the break, Equinix (NASDAQ:EQIX, news, filings) announced an extension to its alliance with Carpathia Hosting. Carpathia is now using Equinix’s Hong Kong IBX to power its first expansion into the APAC region. They’ll be providing colo, managed hosting, and of course cloud solutions out of Hong Kong, much as they do out of Equinix’s US facilities.
And this morning, Reuters says the undersea unit of Reliance Communications has filed its preliminary prospectus for that Singapore IPO they’ve been planning, with roadshows starting Monday. Apparently the division had $267.5M in revenue for the 12 months ending in March, with $287.6M projected for fiscal 2013 and $308.8M in 2014. It would be much easier to keep track of these guys if someone would give this soon-to-be IPO’d division a real name again in the press instead of Reliance’s Globalcom division’s submarine cable business. If they’ve filed a prospectus, surely it has such a name now? [EDIT: GTI Trust is the name, apparently.] Maybe we can just call it FLAG again?
If you haven't already, please take our Reader Survey! Just 3 questions to help us better understand who is reading Telecom Ramblings so we can serve you better!
Categories: Datacenter · ILECs, PTTs · Undersea cables
Join Our LinkedIn Group
I would speculate that the Reliance unit is their Reliance Globalcom Limited Unit made up of Yipes, Flag, Falcon and Vanco and NGN.
From what I can tell, it seems to be a subset of Globalcom.
Upon further research, I would agree it is essentially the FLAG assets.