Telecom Ramblings

FirstLight Fiber was born out of the combination of three network operators operating in neighboring regions: Tech Valley communications in Upstate New York, SegTel in New Hampshire, and TelJet in Vermont.  The company has a unique footprint in a part of the country that really doesn’t get its share of attention when it comes to internet infrastructure.  With us today to tell us about FirstLight’s plans for the future is CEO Kurt Van Wagenen, who took over the job in October of 2013. [Read more →]

This week the Ramblings’ Jobs Board hit another new all time high, passing the twenty mark with three new jobs from WCI and another new one from Lightower. [Read more →]

This article was authored by Joseph Waring, and was originally posted on telecomasia.net.

China now has 155 million kilometers of laid fiber, a 13-times increase from 11 million in 2003. That represents 30% annual growth and accounts for 60% of the world total.  [Read more →]

Here’s a quick roundup of vendor news from this week that’s worth a look: [Read more →]

Global Cloud Xchange, which until a few months ago we called Reliance Globalcom, is planning another submarine cable buildout.  According to a press release this morning, they plan to build a new link between Singapore and Mumbai.   [Read more →]

In what could be a key partnership for both the CDN and Vyvx sides of its content business, Level 3 announced today that it is expanding its video cloud services into China. They are working with China Telecom to both gain and give access to the world’s largest market. [Read more →]

In the two days since Level 3 announced an agreement to buy tw telecom, we’ve had time to develop some first impressions of the deal.  Readers of this site know more about either or both companies than just about any audience out there, so what do you think?  Pick two adjectives: [Read more →]

Here’s a set of quick-takes from network operators around the US this week, just to make sure they don’t get completely swamped by the Level 3/tw telecom news. [Read more →]

Reports including this one from Bloomberg have Pacnet up for sale with a nominal $1B price tag.  It’s not the first time that the company’s private equity owners have sought an exit of course.  The last time there were public rumors was when PT Telkom’s rumored bid fell through just before former CEO Bill Barney got sacked.  But that’s in the past, and Carl Grivner has been running things for a couple years now.  So who might do the buying? [Read more →]

In a challenge to the established order, Cyan has introduced what it bills as the first orchestration application spanning WAN, cloud, and NFV. Building on their Blue Planet platform, they hope to enable carrier customers to streamline new product development and management. [Read more →]

As we continue to digest the LVLT/TWTC deal and its implications in the US market, here’s a quick roundup of other news items in recent days from around the world: [Read more →]

NTT Communications is working its infrastructure way deeper into the markets of southeast Asia.   Of course they’ve been making similar moves globally for some time, especially in continental Europe.  But in this part of the world there has been perhaps some historical suspicion to overcome, but lately Chinese moves in the South China Sea have ruffled more than a few feathers and perhaps created [Read more →]

The proposed combination of Level 3 and tw telecom is going to change a lot of the current rules of the road in competitive infrastructure. Here are a few thoughts as to some repercussions, feel free to add your own below in the comments: [Read more →]

When the rumors started late last week, I must say I didn’t believe them.  But this time the big one turned out to be real.  Level 3 Communications has this morning announced a deal to acquire tw telecom.  [Read more →]

It’s almost too good to be true from my point of view. News has been coming out of the FCC that has Tom Wheeler & crew looking at peering. While it’s not being treated directly as a part of the net neutrality debate, he has called them ‘cousins’ which is a good start. [Read more →]

On Friday, the Phoenix Business Journal was handed an exclusive PR with some fascinating M&A news. Limelight Networks has a received a bid for the company. Then over the weekend, Limelight threw some cold water on the idea but probably not enough to quench it outright just yet. [Read more →]

This week the Ramblings’ Jobs Board saw its listings surge to a historical high of 16, with the help of a cool baker’s dozen from Lightower. [Read more →]

TGIF, but before you go here’s a set of quick takes on a few other interesting items from this week: [Read more →]

This Industry Viewpoint was contributed by AVANT Communications’ Niko O’Hara.

Service providers today offer a variety of cloud services – everything from Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) to Hosted VoIP (or UCaaS) – but the area that’s sparking the most interest here at AVANT Communications has to be Desktop as a Service. Over the past year, several large [Read more →]

Zayo has picked up a significant contract expansion with the UK’s TalkTalk. Zayo will be providing 10G waves in the UK and across Europe, a boost of IP transit speeds to 50G, and 10G transatlantic circuits, as well as seven new dark fiber circuits for satisfying future demand. [Read more →]

Here’s a few quick takes on news from the VoIP and UC world this week: [Read more →]

When I first started this website, the so called ‘exaflood’ was looming on the horizon with all sorts of dire but ultimately silly predictions.  According to Cisco, in a few short years the ‘exaflood’ era will give way to what we thankfully aren’t calling the ‘zettaflood’, at least yet. [Read more →]

In this roundup, an interconnection, some new franchise rights, two state contract vehicles, and an update from rural Texas. [Read more →]