Telecom Ramblings

The so called “heartbleed bug” is apparently worse than an epidemic. It isn’t just going around, everyone’s already got it. The tiny yet massive flaw is in the popular security library OpenSSL. This is apparently a week for irony. [Read more →]

One of the next big frontiers of simultaneous cooperation and competition in internet infrastructure looks like it will be interconnection agreements that will be necessary to turn off the PSTN. Yesterday, the nations’s biggest ILEC and one of its larger privately held CLECs managed to actually get it done. [Read more →]

Well, it’s been an interesting week for the regulatory process that the Comcast/TW Cable merger will be mired in for a while. All the excitement in the news is what Business Week properly calls a sideshow, albeit an entertaining one.  [Read more →]

Time for a quick rundown of news on the international front from this week: [Read more →]

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

Security spend is outpacing IT spend. And the only thing that seems to be outpacing security spend is security losses. Martin Casado, VMware’s CTO for networking, says: “It’s like we’re losing this battle. We can’t spend our way out of the battle.” [Read more →]

Unite Private Networks is taking another step beyond its E-Rate roots with a significant new buildout of intercity fiber in the Midwest.  When complete, the new fiber will span nearly 200 route miles between Kansas City and Omaha along interstate 29.  It will feature a high fiber count, lower latency, and of course diversity from existing carrier routes. [Read more →]

Here’s a quick update on other news from the early part of this week that’s worth noting.   [Read more →]

Another bit of M&A in the managed services and cloud arena has rolled past. Masergy said today that it has acquired the Texas-based security solutions provider Global DataGuard. [Read more →]

My content delivery M&A speculation the other day may have seemed far-fetched, but little did I know that there was another network operator out there about to enter the CDN waters. Hibernia Networks has in fact taken the plunge, launching its HiberniaCDN offering on Monday. [Read more →]

There have been two key video announcements at the NAB event out in Las Vegas for Level 3. Given how dominant video bits are when it comes to overall internet traffic these days, it’s a reminder of just how much more there could be in a few years. [Read more →]

According to Vertical Systems Group, the ongoing industry-wide rollout of fiber to the business markets continues to make steady progress. The industry aggregate percentage of on-net commercial buildings with 20+ employees spent 2013 rising to 39.3%, up from 36.1% the prior year and 31.8% the year before that. Back when I started Ramblings, this number was still in the [Read more →]

XO Communications stepped back into the public eye with some new expansion plans yesterday, backed by some new cash. Since Chris Ancell took over as CEO after last Thanksgiving, I’ve been waiting to see which way he would turn the steering wheel at XO. [Read more →]

There’s been a bunch of metro fiber news in the past few days, here’s a quick rundown: [Read more →]

In a filing with the SEC yesterday, Juniper Networks offered some sobering new information about its plan to refocus and cut costs. They’ll be reducing their headcount worldwide by 6%, which given current levels of around 9500 means that about 500-600 folks will be looking for alternatives.  Juniper says a significant proportion of those will be from middle management.  [Read more →]

In the last few days two IP backbones, each large in transit but small in the overall telecom world, made quiet moves that have given them an extra $200M or so to play with. GTT filed a shelf with the SEC in that amount, while Cogent Communications has tapped the debt markets. And while it’s probable that there’s nothing relating the two moves (I certainly don’t have any information about either company’s plans), it still got me thinking. What sort of inorganic move would make sense for an independent IP backbone right now? [Read more →]

Here’s four interesting items from the international front: [Read more →]

Zayo is at it again. No, they didn’t buy anyone yet today, I mean on the organic front. For all the fanfare of M&A and consolidation, Zayo’s more enduring legacy will be all the fiber they are putting in the ground. The new project is in and around the heart of the tech world: Silicon Valley. [Read more →]

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

Remember those rumors that Facebook is planning to use drones to deliver Internet connectivity to the unconnected?  Turns out it’s true.

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Here’s a quick rundown of some recent metro news from around the sector: [Read more →]

A new trend is poised to emerge in meeting the power needs of the ever-expanding global data center footprint while meeting new green energy standards. Sources say the next big merger deal in the sector will probably be between an unnamed national colocation operator and either Bally’s or Gold’s Gym. [Read more →]

This morning, industry giant AT&T unveiled a new use for its cash and it isn’t European M&A.  Rather than do anything rash, the company’s board of directors has authorized a new stock buyback of up to another 300M shares with no expiry. That’s up to 6% of the total and represents a not insubstantial $10B or so in cash at today’s stock price. [Read more →]

In a Forbes piece yesterday, Hal Singer took the role of transit backbones in the world’s internet infrastructure and reduced it all the way down to the status of ‘middlemen’.  And of course, middlemen are undeserving of protection from the FCC when it comes to ensuring a healthy marketplace since they don’t actually do much of anything anyway, right?   Be careful what you wish for. [Read more →]

Over the past few weeks, another country has decided that the solution to its problems is to clamp down on the internet. In Turkey it started with the blocking of a few major social media sites, i.e. Twitter and YouTube. But over the weekend it blossomed into full scale DNS hijacking, according to Renesys.  [Read more →]