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 →]
Google Aims For LEO
June 3rd, 2014

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 →]
Monday Metro: Mammoth, UPN, Data Foundry, TDS
June 2nd, 2014
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 →]
Think SDN will save you? Think again
June 2nd, 2014
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 →]
Colo Bytes: SFR, 365DC, GoGrid, QTS, Peak, Viawest
May 30th, 2014
Lots of interesting news items from the colo world still to look at from this week. [Read more →]
NTT Leverages Virtela to Take NFV Global
May 29th, 2014
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 →]
Sprint/T-Mobile, For Real This Time?
May 29th, 2014
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 →]
Industry Spotlight: FiberLight’s Paul Pierron
May 29th, 2014
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 →]
MicroSoft, Facebook to Dabble In Submarine Cables?
May 28th, 2014
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 →]
Vendor Bytes: Cyan, Ciena, Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco
May 28th, 2014
Some interesting news this week from vendors: [Read more →]
Financial Trends for Network Operators in Q1
May 27th, 2014

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 →]
Wireline-wireless gap to widen
May 27th, 2014
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.
The data insight archaeologist: realizing the value of hidden insights
May 26th, 2014

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 →]
Ramblings’ Jobs: Jaymie Scotto & Associates
May 24th, 2014
This week’s new listing on the Ramblings Jobs Board comes from Jaymie Scotto & Associates. [Read more →]
Friday Metro: Zayo, UPN, Cbeyond, CenturyLink
May 23rd, 2014
Here’s a final roundup of news from the metro this week before everyone heads for the beach. [Read more →]
Six Years of Ramblings
May 23rd, 2014

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 →]
Elevating the Data Center: Implementing a Successful All-Flash Strategy
May 22nd, 2014
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 →]
Int’l Bytes: Netflix, Epsilon, Equinix, GTT
May 22nd, 2014
Europe’s OTT market is about to get shaken up, and other stories from around the world this week. [Read more →]
Datacenter Roundup: EvoSwitch, Data Foundry, Equinix, US Signal
May 21st, 2014
Catching up with news this Wednesday in the data center space: [Read more →]
Hard realities about the mobile web
May 21st, 2014
This article was authored by Jouko Ahvenainen, and was originally posted on telecomasia.net.
Quantcast published its latest report on discovering content on mobile. According to the report apps dominate mobile content use. People use over 80% of their mobile time in apps. And apps drive also a lot of mobile browsing traffic, 24% of browsing traffic comes from apps. But only about 1,000 apps have [Read more →]
Lightower to Take On Greater Baltimore
May 20th, 2014

Furthering its expansion in the Mid-Atlantic region, Lightower today announced significant metro fiber buildout plans for in Maryland. They are adding some 270 route miles in and through downtown Baltimore, the surrounding metro area, and in the corridor down to Washington DC. [Read more →]
Network Bytes: euNetworks, Zayo, NORDUnet, XO, Level 3
May 20th, 2014
It’s time for a roundup of network news from the past few days that is worth a quick look: [Read more →]
Comcast Has a CDN Too?
May 20th, 2014
According to Dan Rayburn, there’s another CDN in the game and it’s Comcast. We’re not talking about fast lanes in the last mile here, though there is sure to be some confusion. [Read more →]