Telecom Ramblings

Windstream’s move last week to spin off/lease back its network and copper into a REIT certainly shook things up last week. Monday’s poll shows quite clearly that folks in the industry have diverging views on what it all means.  There are definitely unresolved questions out there, at least for me. Let’s ramble on about a few of them: [Read more →]

According to the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg this morning, Sprint has given up its quest to purchase its rival T-Mobile US — again. Of course, it’s not an official decision and even if true they could restart things in a heartbeat if they wanted to, but the WSJ has had the inside track on this since the beginning. [Read more →]

With its home turf in Spain still a painful market, Telefonica seems to have decided that its best bet for the future lies in Latin America.  Rumors last week had them sniffing around assets in Mexico in the wake of Carlos Slim’s retreat, but this morning they took a more concrete action.  Telefonica has bid for GVT, and if they succeed they’ll have the biggest marketshare in the largest regional market.   [Read more →]

Here’s a quick rundown on some news from abroad: [Read more →]

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Max Silber, executive director of mobility, MetTel

Before the era when cell phones became permanently glued to our hands and our ears, walkie talkies were the fastest and most efficient way of communicating over a short distance. As mobile technology advanced both the devices and the service, field workers such as construction companies and police departments became synonymous with the chunky phones and scenarios depicted in the Nextel advertisements of the late 1990’s. After the demise of the original iDEN Nextel National Network just a short year ago, some may think that the “push-to-talk” movement is over, but that is far from the truth. [Read more →]

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

Amazon (Amazon Web Services, AWS) is the leading enterprise cloud provider. Amazon surprised the market with a larger than expected loss. AWS has had a big impact on the result. What does it mean that the leading cloud company cannot run a profitable business? [Read more →]

Last week had a few surprise moves, but perhaps the most puzzling one was Windstream’s plans to spin off a fiber REIT.  We’ve had a little while to digest the idea, so I’m posing the question to Ramblings’ readership this morning.  What do you think? [Read more →]

Cloud services, broadband video, mobile technologies, apps, and other forms of information and entertainment are all driving tremendous traffic volumes on metro networks. This packet-based network traffic – connecting people to content – travels on metro networks as soon as it leaves the data center. Network operators are feeling the pressure of unpredictable traffic volumes, and they need new network solutions that allow them to keep pace with demand growth while reducing complexity and enabling the addition of new services. Brian Lavallée, Ciena’s Director or Product & Solutions Marketing shares a list of factors driving the evolution of metro Ethernet networks today and into the future. [Read more →]

Shaw Communications is making a big play in the western USA colo and cloud market place. Yesterday the Canadian MSO and network operator announced plans to purchase ViaWest in a dea worth $1.2B. [Read more →]

Yes, a bid landed on the table for T-Mobile today from a foreign wireless carrier backed by a billionaire with a talent for disruption. But it wasn’t from Softbank and Masayoshi Son was not involved. The French carrier Iliad, which is backed by Xavier Niel, has come out of nowhere to offer [Read more →]

Here’s a quick roundup of some of the news from the sector that didn’t have to do with earnings reports this week: [Read more →]

The data center business shows no sign of slowing down, at least if Equinix’s results are any indication.  Revenues, EBITDA, and earnings per share all outpaced both guidance and expectations, and the company boosted its full year guidance for both revenue and EBITDA.  Here are their numbers in some context: [Read more →]

A week or so earlier than usual and a day and a half after its prospective acquirer did so, tw telecom posted its second quarter results.  They saw revenue growth pick up a little bit over the past few quarters, moving up 2.8% sequentially and beating estimates slightly.  Earnings per share seems to have been inline after excluding merger-related costs.  Here are their numbers in some context: [Read more →]

For quite a few years now, the Indian telecommunications giant Reliance Communications has been looking for a way to monetize its international networking assets.  According to Telegeography, China’s CITIC Telecom is said to be preparing a bid, at least for the submarine cable part.   Have they finally found a buyer? [Read more →]

Netflix and AT&T have apparently made an interconnection pact, following the same path as we have seen over the past two quarters with Comcast and Verizon. Perhaps this time will be a little less acrimonious, as the two plan to have the necessary connections in place ‘over the coming days’. [Read more →]

In a proposed move that could shake up the way the industry looks at its assets, Windstream today announced plans to spin off some assets into a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT). When I saw the headline, I figured it was their data center assets & business al la Equinix etc, but it is not about colo at all. They are actually looking to put their fiber and copper network assets into a publicly traded REIT. [Read more →]

With the tw telecom transaction still looming large in the autumn, Q2 and Q3 for Level 3 are about not tripping over anything.  And they didn’t, posting another strong quarter of enterprise revenue growth.  This time it was Europe and South America that held things up, even after taking out boosts from currency fluctuations.  Here are their actual numbers in some context: [Read more →]

Here’s a quick look at some of this week’s early announcements and some of last week’s later ones: [Read more →]

This article was authored by John C. Tanner, and was originally posted on telecomasia.net.

Many telcos are worried about OTT voice/messaging services cannibalizing their revenues. India’s Idea Cellular is not one of them – at least on the domestic voice front. [Read more →]

Last quarter the question was whether Level 3’s revenue and EBITDA growth would justify its stock price gains, and they came through big.  On Tuesday they’ll report their Q2 numbers and the dynamics are rather less organic as we have the tw telecom deal hanging overhead.  But it is important that the company maintain its growth momentum going into the merger.  Here are my guesses for Level 3’s Q2 numbers in the usual historical context: [Read more →]

Three more job listings this week on the Ramblings Jobs Board, with one each from Logix Communications, Walker & Associates, and FirstLight Fiber. [Read more →]

Now that all the immediate aftermath of the Level 3 merger announcement has subsided and we wait a quarter for the deal to close, tw telecom is pulling everyone’s focus back down to the company’s main operational task for 2014. That would be the expansion of its metro fiber footprint in markets across the country, a few the details of two of those markets being announced today. [Read more →]

Equinix’s entry into the Brazilian data center market is now officially complete.  Yesterday they announced the purchase of the 47% of ALOG Data Centers that it didn’t already own, bringing two data centers in Rio de Janeiro and two more in Sao Paolo all the way into their orbit. [Read more →]