Int’l Bytes: RETN, CityFibre, China Unicom, Aryaka

Here’s a quick rundown on some of the early infrstructure news from around the world:

RETN is putting some new gear to work as it further upgrades the company’s pan-European fiber network. They have deployed Infinera’s Cloud Xpress for their Western European footprint, enabling them to better interconnect with regional networks. They’ve already got Infinera gear across much of their northern and eastern infrastructure, of course.

CityFibre has a new customer for its buildout in the Scottish city of Aberdeen. The Aberdeen City Council will be leveraging the company’s fiber network to hook up over 100 public buildings, spanning administration buildings, schools, and libraries. They are working with Capita as part of the Scottish Wide Area Network program. Aberdeen became one of CityFibre’s Gigabit City projects back in 2014.

China Unicom Global has apparently been busy interconnecting with other regional mobile carrier networks. They announced a direct connection bilateral agreement hooking up their IPX network with those of Hong Kong-based PCCW and Hutchison Global, and with Taiwan-based Chunghwa Telecom. The deal will expand the mobile data roaming range of all four Chinese operators, streamlining connectivity between each.

And the SD-WAN specialist Aryaka has raised $45M in new funding.  Deutsche Telekom Capital Partners is joining their existing investors, including Third Point Ventures, in a Series D financing round.  The move is billed as the first direct investment by a major global telco into SD-WAN technology.  Aryaka is also bringing in Aidan Cullen as its new CFO.

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Categories: Financials · Interconnection · Metro fiber · Telecom Equipment