Telecom Ramblings

Today’s networks are increasingly complex, and keeping them running at peak efficiency takes a lot of work.  So for this week’s spotlight, let’s take a peek behind the curtain of the Network Operations Center.  With us today is Hal Baylor, Director of Business Development at INOC.  INOC specializes in outsourced NOC solutions for infrastructure of all sizes, and has been seeing rapid growth in recent years. [Read more →]

Lots of earnings news from network operators this morning, here’s a quick look at five: [Read more →]

May is here, but April’s showers keep on coming.  In the meantime, here’s a quick roundup of some news from this week from colo and the metro: [Read more →]

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Scott Sumner, VP Strategic Marketing, Accedian

Market forces in the enterprise business services space are driving providers to adapt their delivery models.They’re moving away from single-function, proprietary hardware appliances in favour of virtualized platforms centrally hosted in the cloud to minimize the costs and limitations of [Read more →]

Most traffic via Asia and Europe travels under the ocean despite the fact that you can walk from one to the other.  But the terrestrial efforts are gaining more ground, and this week we saw another pathway develop.  China Telecom Global (CTG) and JSC Kazakhtelecom (KT) have signed an agreement to cooperate on a low latency, high-capacity route across central Asia. [Read more →]

Internap is expanding its service reach into China with the help of its larger neighbor in the market, Equinix.  Internap has joined Equinix’s channel partner program as well as the company’s cloud exchange, and will be offering its China Performance IP solution via Equinix in Hong Kong.   [Read more →]

The Canadian market is about to see some significant consolidation.  BCE, which owns the dominant incumbent Bell Canada as well as various media properties, has entered into an agreement to buy its smaller neighboring incumbent Manitoba Telecom Services, better known as MTS.   [Read more →]

Here are a few international items to review as the first week of May gets started.   [Read more →]

The edge is one of the hottest infrastructure domains right now, as content moves out to get closer to the end user and reduce latency. The latest example comes from the biggest cloud, as Amazon’s AWS Direct Connect now has its first metro endpoint in both the city of Portland, Oregon and in an EdgeConneX data center. [Read more →]

We have a new job listing to review at over on the Ramblings’ Jobs Board as we kick off the month of a hopefully less soggy May. [Read more →]

There was quite a bit of earnings activity this week.  Here’s a quick look at how four companies from different corners of the industry did relative to expectations, with one CDN/cloud, two vendors, and a data center REIT: [Read more →]

There was some interesting international consolidation this morning.  A Chinese telecommunications company made a move on a chunk of fiber in eastern Europe, or more specifically in the Baltics.  Hong Kong based CITIC Telecom is acquiring Linx Telecommunications. [Read more →]

With 18 months since the tw telecom acquisition under its belt, Level 3 Communications is now entering into what hopefully turn out to be a period of organic growth where the combined company starts to show its promise.  There’s sure to be ongoing integration work of course, but for 2016 it shouldn’t be the dominant feature.  They’ll be starting from a relatively low overall base though, as today the company released its first quarter numbers, the relevant numbers of which are summarized in the table below: [Read more →]

Telia Carrier, the newly re-branded international network arm of Teliasonera, is on the move again in North America and specifically out in California.  This morning they announced a metro upgrade and a new low latency longhaul route, both with the help of longtime vendor partner Infinera. [Read more →]

Here’s a quick look at some network items so far this week that are worth a quick look: [Read more →]

After a year of waiting for regulators to do what regulators do, Charter Communications’ purchases of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks are being cleared by regulators.   [Read more →]

In its second fiber expansion so far this year, euNetworks is expanding its DWDM network up into Sweden.  They are now offering 10G and 100G wavelengths up into Stockholm via two diverse routes.   [Read more →]

There is some interesting network M&A talk going over in southern Europe this morning. Telecom Italia, which has been looking at the Italian metro and regional netork of Metroweb for some time now, may be planning to use its Sparkle international division to get the deal done. [Read more →]

The infrastructure sector has lost an independent player to chapter 11 bankruptcy, demonstrating that while the fiber business as a whole is pretty healthy right now it is still not an easy one. Late last week, Allied Fiber’s southeastern subsidiaries declared bankruptcy in Delaware court after finding it more difficult than hoped to sell dark fiber and on its newly constructed Atlanta-Miami route. [Read more →]

Here’s a quick Friday roundup of news items from the week that I don’t seem to have gotten to: [Read more →]

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Greg Varisco, COO, Aqua Comms

The lines on a submarine cable map that represent subsea cables crossing the oceans signify the various routes of the world’s data, video and voice communications. But if you were to put your ear closer to the map, you might be able to hear the story of how these systems come about and what goes into the planning process. Modern subsea cable systems are designed to [Read more →]

Birch Communications says it added another 130K buildings to its metro fiber reach in Q1.  In all, they now reach into some 550K buildings this way, with a goal of a million by the end of the year.  [Read more →]

Zayo is raising its dark fiber flag in Canada this spring, a few months after acquiring Allstream and entering the market in force. They revealed yesterday that an unnamed global cloud provider has tapped them for a combined dark fiber and 100G wavelength solution hooking up its Canadian data center back across the border to key US hubs. [Read more →]