Telecom Ramblings

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

The Internet of Things (IoT), an ever-expanding web of connections generating unprecedented volumes of data, holds promise as well as challenges for the telecom industry. The Open Interconnect Consortium was recently formed by a group of technology vendors to define connectivity requirements that ensure the interoperability of the more than 30 billion devices that research group IDC projects will come online by 2020. It’s a blistering pace. [Read more →]

The closing of the deal may be a few months off, but the management team that will lead the combined Level 3/tw telecom was announced today.  We already knew Larissa Herda wouldn’t be staying on of course, leaving the top slot for Jeff Storey, but two of tw telecom’s top management will be merging in. [Read more →]

In an announcement today, Hibernia Networks brought their plans for a new transatlantic cable off the back burner at last. The cable system will be called the Hibernia Express, and manufacturing has already commenced over at TE SubCom. I had heard that SubCom was on the job last year, but Hibernia itself had been rather quiet about it until now.  [Read more →]

Private equity dollars earmarked for the internet infrastructure sector are increasingly getting spent over in Europe.  Today the Carlyle Group announced it has not just invested in Expereo, but has taken a majority stake in the company. [Read more →]

This morning, the news is that Verizon is boosting FIOS upload speeds to match download speeds.  The media is initially talking about how this is about Verizon taking on the cable giants since cable’s technology infrastructure can’t match such a thing.  But I think part of the it could be another side effect of the Netflix traffic war of words. [Read more →]

The Wall Street Journal speculated over the weekend that Carlos Slim and his company America Movil might make a big move north of the border. And of course in the US mobile market, there is only one target getting that sort of attention – T-Mobile USA. Just what the US telecommunications markets need: another foreign billionaire? [Read more →]

Let’s kick off the week by finishing up with a few of the announcements from last week that I didn’t get to look at at the time. [Read more →]

At least one piece of the simmering interconnection dispute over Netflix data bottlenecks has been getting clearer lately. Following Netflix’s ‘crowded network’ warning message to subscribers in June, last week Verizon put out a piece demonstrating that its last mile wasn’t congested at all. And yesterday, Level 3 turned that around in a blog post, saying that Verizon’s explanation is more of an admission.  [Read more →]

Time for a quick rundown of news from the data center and colo biz from this week: [Read more →]

Zayo seems to have found some distressed fiber assets over in the northern UK to bring under its umbrella.  According to reports,  Geo Networks is acquiring what’s left of the network of Digital Region, an FTTP project in South Yorkshire.  Of course, Zayo purchased Geo just two months back. [Read more →]

In a flurry of activity this week, the cloud exchange Equinix introduced this past March has brought in a flock of new participants. With the MicroSoft Worldwide Partner Conference underway, most of the announcements of course had to do with Azure. [Read more →]

All that new fiber on the east coast of Florida is making a few waves this month. Coriant and Allied Fiber revealed a new terabit per second superchannel transmission trial over the new infrastructure yesterday. [Read more →]

Over in the UK, Sohonet is adding to its network footprint in London with some help from euNetworks.   euNetworks said today that it has expanded its relationship with the media network specialist, helping with the buildout of Sohonet’s rapidly expanding reach. [Read more →]

Here’s a quick roundup of some interesting news from the metro: [Read more →]

There was a bit of network M&A up in the Pacific Northwest yesterday. Integra has agreed to purchase Seattle’s World Communications Inc, also known as WCI.  It is Integra’s second inorganic move of the year, following the purchase of ProTel Networks back in March.  The deal boosts Integra’s market presence in the state of Washington across a range of voice, data, and colo products. [Read more →]

Ok, it’s been a few weeks now since Level 3 Communications and tw telecom dropped their merger bombshell on the markets. There’s now been time to absorb what it means for the two companies and the sector as a whole, and time to consider just what lies ahead for both companies. [Read more →]

There was a bit of M&A out in the Midwest over the weekend, with Carrier Access announcing the purchase of Tektivity.  The two companies hope to find greater opportunities together, marrying a complementary set of communications and managed services. [Read more →]

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

Five top VC’s in California were asked to pick the ten biggest tech trends over the next five years (Forbes article). #2 on their list was digital disintermediation of banks and #10 was that credit cards are the new app platform. [Read more →]

This week the Ramblings’ Jobs Board is still sporting a dozen and a half job listings, with two more for Lightower’s summer blitz. [Read more →]

In a blog post yesterday, Verizon fired the latest round in the public blame wars over why Netflix videos buffer on their network.  The case they made offered little new information, however, and of course placed the blame squarely upon Netflix. [Read more →]

Here’s another set of quick takes on other news items this week worth noting: [Read more →]

GlobeNet is coming ashore down in Florida, adding dark fiber to its submarine cable and Brazilian terrestrial footprint. They have tapped Allied Fiber for the new infrastructure between Miami and Jacksonville, as well as colocation and interconnection services. Two legs of their submarine cable network hooking up North and South America land on the south Florida coast. [Read more →]

I’m always thinking of 100G when I read about Ciena, but they’ve been making a big move into the SDN world lately. Yesterday they unveiled a new prong of that attack with the release of their Agility portfolio. [Read more →]