Friday Bytes: Alpheus, Cogent, Tata, Hylan Datacom

Here’s a quick look at some other news from this week that’s worth a look before you head out for the weekend:

Out in Texas, Alpheus Communications is expanding its portfolio further.  They have launched a managed dark fiber product, taking aim at enterprises that want the flexibility of dark fiber without all the upfront costs and pesky IT resource needs.  Alpheus has been taking the organic route over the last several years, refocusing its efforts on its fiber network across the state.

Over at Cogent, Q2 revenues came in a bit light while earnings per share was on target and EBITDA was better than anticipated.  But EBITDA was boosted by non-core stuff, and the revenue miss was due to discounts triggered by traffic growth in their net-centric business, particularly at Netflix it seems.  That led to a rough day for the company’s stock price.  Cogent added 26 on-net buildings during the quarter, a steady but perhaps gradually slowing pace.  Total headcount fell by 1, the first time I’ve seen it not go up in many quarters.

On the international front, Tata Communications checked in for Q2 with $752M in revenue and $129M in EBITDA,  That was down 7.8% and up 12.2%, respectively.  The company has been seeing a shift toward data services and away from voice and other legacy products.  They are in the process of divesting Neotel in South Africa and recently sold a majority stake of their data center business to ST Telemedia.

And last week back in my home turf of New Jersey, Hylan Datacom & Electrical brought in some private equity money.  Flexis Capital ant TZP Group  have invested in the specialty contractor, which is looking forward to growing opportunities in the wireless backhaul and DAS space.  Notably, former AboveNet CEO Bill LaPerch will be coming in as Executive Chairman.

 

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Categories: Financials · Internet Backbones · Metro fiber