Telecom Ramblings

Some corporate mergers hit the markets like a meteor strike, landing all at once and with little warning. The potential Sprint/T-Mobile combination is more like a slow moving hurricane that never seems to come ashore as it waxes and wanes in strength.  But landfall looks more likely now than ever. [Read more →]

CityFibre has a new item in its list of Gigabit Cities over in the UK this week.  They have now completed the acquisition of Coventry’s existing metro fiber network, upon which they will expand to offer connectivity to the city’s business community. [Read more →]

In the metro space this week we have the channel helping out with two contracts with two retailers, and bandwidth for a few good men. [Read more →]

For the second time in a few weeks, Kaia Global Networks has cropped up in the infrastructure news over in Europe. Their relationship with euNetworks has been expanded with multi-year agreements for capacity on their European backbone.  [Read more →]

Here’s some quick takes on news from three global backbone operators: [Read more →]

I have been reading with some amusement and some trepidation the rapid advancement of this ‘right to be forgotten’ concept in Europe. It’s the sort of thing that sounds great when it comes out of the mouths of politicians and those with particularly egregious cases, sounds even better to lawyers, and drive those who design and build the stuff to perhaps retire early. [Read more →]

Apparently fiber isn’t enough for Google, as they are again putting resource to work up in the sky. They are now said to be backing WorldVu and it’s plan to put 360 satellites up into low earth orbit starting sometime in 2019. The target would be high speed wireless broadband access into the hard to reach spots on the planet. [Read more →]

I’m running a bit late today, but here’s a quick look at a few items I didn’t get to last week that I probably should have: [Read more →]

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

Operators need unprecedented agility to survive as old business models are rendered obsolete, but while SDN technology may help them pull that transformation off, they’re kidding themselves if they think deploying SDN will be easy or simple. [Read more →]

Lots of interesting news items from the colo world still to look at from this week. [Read more →]

In a move that will likely shake things up among global telecommunications operators, the Japanese giant NTT has unveiled a commercial NFV product set globally. NFV, or network functions virtualization, is one of this year’s big buzzwords… or buzz-acronyms I guess. But its actual arrival beyond the testing or trial stage was supposed to be a while off yet. [Read more →]

Reports out of Japan say that Deutsche Telekom AG and Softbank have made a deal. Apparently, Softbank’s Masayoshi Son made a proposal in mid-May and Deutsche Telekom AG has agreed, although confirmation seems to be elusive. If true, the deal would bring together Sprint and T-Mobile in the USA to create a strong #3. [Read more →]

Once the construction arm of Xspedius, FiberLight builds and operates deep regional and metro fiber networks in Texas, the DC metro area, Georgia, and Florida.  They are currently in the midst of a giant buildout project in Texas that when complete will have added some 8,000 route miles to their network. With us today to talk about the company’s expansion plans is Paul Pierron, who was promoted to CEO three months ago after joining the company as COO early in 2013.  He is no stranger to this sector or to FiberLight’s main markets, having previously held leadership roles at AT&T, SBC, Sprint, Nuvox, LightCore and Xspedius. [Read more →]

Long after Google got involved in such mundane things as submarine cables, it seems two other tech giants have gotten the itch. Apparently both MicroSoft and Facebook are making plans to follow in Google’s transpacific footsteps and invest in a new undersea fiber build.  Actually Facebook is already part of APG I believe, but might be looking to up its presence further. [Read more →]

Some interesting news this week from vendors: [Read more →]

I have updated the competitive telecom trends graphs with the data from Q1 and the stock price movements since.  There are a few interesting highlights worth zeroing in on.  The charts below are snapshots, you can play with the interactive data on the main competitive telecom trends page. [Read more →]

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

Point Topic has just released its forecast for worldwide fixed broadband at the end of the decade – its estimate is 989.4 million lines at the end of December 2020.  Let’s put that number in perspective.

[Read more →]

This Industry Viewpoint was contributed by Pravin Vijay, Director-Marketing at Flytxt. 

The definition of data archaeology is now around retrieving data and information from data sources having unknown or alien formats. This definition is going to get extended in this era of ‘big data’. A new stream will emerge, where unearthing insights and realizing the value from ‘invisible’ and ‘unknown’ data could be the span of study and focus. We can probably [Read more →]

This week’s new listing on the Ramblings Jobs Board comes from Jaymie Scotto & Associates. [Read more →]

Here’s a final roundup of news from the metro this week before everyone heads for the beach. [Read more →]

A week or two ago, Ramblings had a birthday and I forgot to throw a party. Yep, this website turned six years old this May, and I needed folks liking the automated LinkedIn ‘work anniversary’ notice to remind me of the date.  Here’s a big THANK YOU to everyone who has helped this site survive and thrive, whether as a sponsor, as a reader and commenter, retweeter, etc.   [Read more →]

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Stefan Bernbo, CEO and founder of Compuverde. 

A 2012 Cisco report estimated that global data center traffic would rise from 1.8 zettabytes (ZB) in 2011 to 6.6ZB in 2016. One explanation for the explosive growth in data is the “Internet of Things.” The Internet of Things (IoT) describes the era where wireless, network-connected devices become ever more [Read more →]

Europe’s OTT market is about to get shaken up, and other stories from around the world this week. [Read more →]