Monday Roundup: Ciena, Tata, CenturyLink, Amdocs

For global carriers made interesting announcements late last week that should be noted, with three with new or expanded vendor relationships and one doing balance sheet work:

Ciena has sold more of its optical gear over in Europe. Telia Carrier, which operates one of the largest IP backbones in the world, will be deploying Ciena’s Open Optical Line System starting in early 2020. They’ll be starting with the core Frankfurt/London/Amsterdam/Paris loop and then moving on to additional key markets. They will also be deploying Ciena’s transponders in existing line systems in both Europe and the USA. The upgrade will further enable Telia’s network to run alien wavelengths, among other things.

In another announcement last week that almost slipped past me, Tata Communications has teamed up with Microsoft for connected cars. The two are pairing Tata Communications MOVE platform for IoT and network intelligence with Micrsoft’s Connected Vehicle Platform. Tata’s technology enables greater flexibility in analyzing and choosing mobile networks in any given geography to optimize both perfomance and cost. Tata will be building a proof-of-concept solution to take to the automotive sector.

CenturyLink is taking on a piece of its balance sheet. Last week the company’s Level 3 Financing subsidiary announced plans to sell $750M in 3.4% senior secured notes due 2027 and another $750M of 3.875% senior secured notes due 2029 in private offerings, with the former priced at 99.780% and the latter at 99.985% of principal amount. The proceeds will be used to pay off a portion of the company’s $4.611B senior secured Tranche B 2024 term loans.

And finally, AT&T and Amdocs have expanded their strategic alliance. AT&T is working with the software and services vendor to continue to modernize and upgrade their back office via a multi-year managed services agreement. The collaboration will accelerate the implementation of DevOps and will be working on new projects in data analytics and security.

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Categories: Financials · Internet Backbones · Software · Telecom Equipment