Earnings reports this week have drowned out most other news, but there was quite a bit of activity in the metro fiber space. Here are some quick looks:
I hadn’t realized that Primus Telecommunications Group (NYSE:PTGI, news, filings) was sitting on a fair amount of Australian metro fiber in the country’s five major markets. Earlier this week the company won a contract with Australian Power & Gas, which is revamping its WAN and voice networks. Last autumn PTGI said it was looking at strategic alternatives, and it still seems likely to me that it will be some sort of breakup and sale that will result. That Aussie fiber does increase my own perception of what they might get. PTGI also has a consumer last mile initiative going on in western Canada today.
Ciena (NASDAQ:CIEN, news, filings) picked up two international Ethernet contracts. Canadian service provider Fibrenoire will be leveraging their metro Ethernet gear to boost their Ethernet-based services to the enterprise in Quebec and Ontario. And across the Atlantic, Ireland’s e|net is leveraging similar gear from Ciena to upgrade its regional infrastructure, including the Irish government’s MAN program. Much of these two probably derives from the former Nortel relationships, and it’s nice to see Ciena making headway with them.
abvt, which has been relatively quiet this winter, is beefing up its channel. They have added Adam Phones as a gold partner in Europe. Adam Phones obviously is selling more than voice these days, moving into big pipes as European enterprises are looking more and more at bringing in fiber. Abovenet has long been in London, but last year expanded onto the continent to Amsterdam, Frankfurt, and Paris.
Along with a very solid earnings report, TW Telecom (NASDAQ:TWTC, news, filings) picked up an interesting government deal as well. The state of South Carolina has awarded them a multi-year contract that enables tw to serve the state’s various agencies, departments, educational institutions, and such with its usual suite of Ethernet, IPVPN, and converged solutions. tw telecom has metro networks in Columbia, Greenville, Spartanburg, and Charleston, and spent 2011 adding buildings to its network nationwide at a startling pace. Meanwhile, just today they joined the list of fiber operators supporting Amazon’s AWS Direct Connect platform.
And in the New York metro area, Optimum Lightpath (news) [a subsidiary of Cablevision (NYSE:CVC, news, filings)] is making a play for more government business. Today they unveiled a new Government Services Suite aimed at incrasing its opportunities with local government entities, a business which dovetails nicely with its success amongst school districts across the region. The suite bundles a selection of data, voice, and conferencing products.
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Categories: Mergers and Acquisitions · Metro fiber · Telecom Equipment
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