Telecom Ramblings

This Industry Viewpoint was contributed by Giles House, CMO of CallidusCloud

Like few other industries, telecom seems resigned to churn. The average number of subscribers who voluntarily deactivate each month is huge. According to market research firm Ovum, almost half of existing customers could switch carriers before the end of 2015. Ovum asserts that about a quarter of all users say they will definitely switch to another provider, while another quarter are actively considering changing. [Read more →]

One of the perennial problems faced by IT managers across all sectors is that of security.  From the days of the lone wolf hacker to today’s organized crime and even state-sponsored groups, security has become an arms race that most people don’t realize how badly they are losing.  Network operators are now mobilizing new tools to help the cause however.  With us today to discuss the subject and Level 3 Communications’s newest security offering is Chris Richter, SVP Global Security Services.

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Here’s a quick rundown of some news from the week so far that’s worth a quick look: [Read more →]

In the world of SDN and NFV, Ciena today revealed a new addition to its Blue Planet network and service orchestration platform. They have added a DevOps Toolkit to the mix, hoping to enable the developers at their ecosystem partners to create and on-board new VNFs and other pieces of the puzzle rather than do it all themselves. [Read more →]

Across the Atlantic, the pan-European operator euNetworks has been busy this week with the media vertical. Yesterday they unveiled an expansion of their Media Connect solution up to Manchester’s MediaCityUK. [Read more →]

While it seems like all the news in fiber infrastructure in the first half of this decade has been about consolidation, there have been a few startups that have taken on the sector from the ground up.  One of those is Cross River Fiber, whose home turf is the same as mine – New Jersey.  It’s an interesting market that lives in the shadow of New York City and Philadelphia and sometimes doesn’t get the attention it deserves.  With us today to tell us where Cross River Fiber has been and where it will be going next is Founder and CEO Vincenzo Clemente. [Read more →]

This morning, Windstream announced an expansion of its footprint in the Richmond, Virginia metro area.  It’s part of a multi-city campaign aimed at bringing more of both data centers and enterprises on-net and thus expanding the company’s overall prospects in both its wholesale and business markets. [Read more →]

This morning, ShoreTel revised its expectation for fiscal 2017 hosted revenue growth, offering lower guidance in the 21-24% range.  According to the release, “certain aspects of the business integration and revenue ramp associated with the Corvisa acquisition are not progressing as originally anticipated and are thus impacting our previous near term assumptions.”  However, the company’s fiscal Q4 projections remain intact. [Read more →]

This article was authored by Dylan Bushell-Embling, and was originally posted on telecomasia.net.

Australian operator Telstra has been hit with two more network outages in the span of three days, weeks after committing to invest to improve its network resilience. [Read more →]

A significant chunk of data centers in Asia will be changing ownership structure.  The Indian carrier Tata Communications is selling a 74% stake in its data center business in India and Singapore to ST Telemedia.  Tata Communications will retain a 26% stake in the business, which becomes a joint venture. [Read more →]

Here’s a quick rundown on a few more interesting news items to keep an eye on: [Read more →]

When you’re a vendor of Cisco’s size, you get to be a bellwether whether you like the title or not.  Reports from other vendors over the last few weeks haven’t inspired the market with confidence, and thus many eyes were on Cisco to determine whether or not to panic.  The answer was no.  All is well at least so far as Cisco’s fiscal Q3 earnings report can tell us. and should continue to be so at least into next quarter. [Read more →]

The plans for a cable through the Arctic Ocean took a dramatic new turn today.  Quintillion Subsea Holdings, which has been building a cable system along the Alaska coast, has purchased the assets of Arctic Fibre, which had been planning a cable system stretching from Japan to the UK through the Northwest Passage. [Read more →]

Here are a few news items from around the world that are worth a look: [Read more →]

There was a bit of inorganic action this morning from a corner of the industry that has been pretty quiet lately.  Inteliquent has acquired Shopety, Inc, which does business as Better Voice, as a means to add muscle to its Omni platform. [Read more →]

Here’s a quick rundown on a few news items from the start of the week: [Read more →]

A substantial amount of colo space will be changing hands according to this morning’s news. Equinix has decided to divest itself of eight data centers over in Europe, and Digital Realty has stepped up to acquire the assets for approximately $874M. In parallel, Equinix gets a binding option to acquire Digital Realty’s facility in St. Denis, Paris. [Read more →]

With the political primaries winding down, let’s have a poll of our own.  One of the bigger stories of the spring is the Verizon strike, which has grown increasingly nasty since starting four weeks ago and yesterday apparently spread across the Pacific to the Philippines in what looks to have been a very scary incident.  In the end, how disruptive do you think this situation will be to the industry and infrastructure as a whole? [Read more →]

This article was authored by Jouko Ahvenainen, and was originally posted on telecomasia.net.

The business world is after disruptive business innovations. While there is debate as to the definition of disruptive innovations (see HBR article), the definition is not so relevant in practice. The more relevant question is whether a new innovation opens opportunities for new companies and is a fatal threat to old business. [Read more →]

Earlier this Spring, the Hawaiki cable project announced its contract with TE Subcom had come into force.  They had raised the necessary funds to kick off the construction phase, and yesterday we learned where some of those funds came from.  Amazon’s AWS division has stepped up for a large chunk of capacity on the system, becoming a high profile anchor customer on a submarine cable system for the first time. [Read more →]

It’s been a busy week at all levels of the industry, here’s another roundup of news items worth a look from competitive providers: [Read more →]

Verizon’s union workforce has been on strike for the last month or so in what has been one of the biggest features of the Spring telecommunications landscape in the northeastern US. Sometimes these things are perfunctory, making a negotiating point before doing the deal everyone knows will get done. That’s clearly not the case this time though, and it’s starting to get ugly. [Read more →]

There’s plenty of news on the international network front to get to this week with ITW finishing up.  Here’s a roundup of some new or expanded strategic relationships that are worth noting: [Read more →]