Telecom Ramblings

Time for a quick tuesday roundup of news from the competitive network operators, with contract wins for Comcast Business and Integra, expansion plans by Birch and tw telecom, and a compliance achievement for EarthLink. [Read more →]

Global Capacity is expanding its One Marketplace platform into eight Equinix facilities where it is interconnecting with the Equinix Ethernet Exchange. The two have signed a solution partner agreement which will enable automation of Ethernet pricing and delivery across the two platforms. [Read more →]

With its second quarter results today, Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S, news, filings) closes the book on its former self in several ways. Along with the end of the quarter came the shutdown of the Nextel network, soon followed by the closing of the Clearwire and Softbank transactions. Thus their actual numbers have a bit less relevance than usual. [Read more →]

Just thirteen months after taking KPNs board of directors to remedial valuation school as it bought nearly 30% of the company despite protests it was paying too little, America Movil and its billionaire-in-chief seem to be preparing to make a few more waves. Last week Carlos Slim expressed the belief that the sale price for KPN’s E-Plus division was too low, and this week America Movil has now ended its relationship agreement with the Dutch incumbent. [Read more →]

One can often gauge just what messages a company will focus on during its earnings report by looking at the press releases that land just beforehand. For Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings), which reports on Wednesday, the week kicked off with two familiar themes in the form of announcements covering an expanded content services deal in the US and a new, high profile, multinational IP VPN customer in Latin America. [Read more →]

Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) will report its second quarter of 2013 and first quarter under the leadership of CEO Jeff Storey on Wednesday this week.  While some of my earlier models have projected they would make the transition to positive EPS this quarter, the last two quarterly reports managed to delay things and it now looks like that’s a Q3 story.  But I’m guessing that this quarter *should* show some improvements in both revenue and EBITDA: [Read more →]

Time for a quick roundup of news from the data center. Both Telx and CoreSite saw new international network PoPs move into their facilities, Digital Realty made a second Dutch Move, CyrusOne picked up a financial vertical contract, and Savvis launched a new service: [Read more →]

Next month will see another step forward for big bandwidth to and through one of the least connected regions of the planet. Arctic Fiber kicked off its route survey through Canada’s far northern region of Nunavut and northern Quebec. [Read more →]

With the rollout of its flagship DTN-X platform now a year old, Infinera (NASDAQ:INFN, news, filings) appears ready to cross the line back into profitability next quarter.  Revenues and earnings per share beat estimates, and the third quarter guidance came in above expectations: [Read more →]

There were no fireworks in the Q2 report of cloud CDN provider Akamai (NASDAQ:AKAM, news, filings), just solid numbers.  With support from the performance and security solutions side of things, both revenues and adjusted earnings per share came in at the top of guidance, which is right where analysts had been looking.  Here are a few of their numbers in some context: [Read more →]

The carrier neutral data center giant Equinix (NASDAQ:EQIX, news, filings) is taking it on the chin again after hours following its Q2 earnings report.  Eating into their usually rock-steady growth profile were a change to the accounting of non-recurring revenues, the costs involved in the REIT conversion they are pursuing, and some foreign exchange effects.   [Read more →]

Time for a quick roundup of news from early this week or late last week, with contracts for Comcast Business and Geo Networks, a certification for DukeNet, and an expansion by Sovernet on its eastern flank: [Read more →]

Mammoth Networks says it has added three new aggregation points this month up in the lightly covered northern tier, opening locations in Minneapolis MN, Bismark ND, and Cour d’Alene ID. The expansion enhances their capabilities in the Dakotas and in northern Idaho. [Read more →]

Time for a quick roundup of recent news from network providers: [Read more →]

Juniper Networks (NASDAQ:JNPR, news, filings) had a big second quarter according to the results announced earlier today.  Revenues easily bested both their own guidance and analyst expectations, while non-GAAP earnings per share and operating margin were also a few ticks ahead of the curve.  And apparently CEO Kevin Johnson decided this high note was a good chance to go out on top, announcing his plans to retire. [Read more →]

In a $2.7B deal, Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO, news, filings) announced this morning that it has agreed to buy Sourcefire for $76 per share in cash.  That’s nearly a 30% premium above Monday’s closing price. Sourcefire offers highly automated, intelligent security solutions that help enterprises and network operators cope with the growing array of modern cyber attacks. [Read more →]

A data center REIT’s work is never done, there’s always more square footage to be developed. Digital Realty Trust (NYSE:DLR, news, filings) made another such move this morning over in the Netherlands in the suburbs of Amsterdam. They’ve acquired a site in Haarlemmermeer (and no, my ‘a’, ‘e’, and ‘m’ keys aren’t sticking) on which they plan to build an 11.5MW facility. [Read more →]

Rumbles of consolidation in the European wireless markets turned into reality this morning over in Germany. Spanish-based Telefónica has apparently agreed to purchase E-Plus from the Dutch incumbent KPN, shaking up the balance of power in the most important market in Europe. [Read more →]

This week will see a deluge of Q2 earnings announcements, including an interesting cross-section of the most dynamic internet infrastructure stocks. Here’s a quick look at four of them: Juniper reports on Tuesday, followed by Akamai, Infinera, and Equinix on Wednesday. [Read more →]

In India, Bharti Airtel is putting in fiber to the northeast, linking at last to Bangladesh via a terrestrial fiber cable. The Indian operator is in part looking to boost its wireless capabilities and network quality in the neighboring country, and the new route will complement the existing submarine cable and satellite access that Bangladesh gets nearly all its connectivity from at present. [Read more →]

We have a new job listing this week from Tech Valley Communications up in the northeast. [Read more →]

It’s time for a quick Friday roundup of data sector news I didn’t get to this week that’s worth a quick look, with items from Global Capacity, Sabey, Internap, and US Signal: [Read more →]

Yesterday EdgeCast Networks dipped back into the private equity markets to raise another $54M in new financing. The new funds will go toward driving additional growth in the form of additional services, intellectual property, and international sales and marketing. [Read more →]