Telecom Ramblings

For Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings), Latin America is hot — hot enough to put more money into its metro networks. Today the company announced the launch of new high-speed metro networks in both Bogota, Colombia (left) and Buenos Aires, Argentina. [Read more →]

Today Telefonica decided to sell off all of its treasury stock as part of its ongoing effort to cut its debt load. The 90,067,896 shares were sold at €10.80, adding a bounty of €975M to the company’s balance sheet and increasing the company’s shares outstanding by just under 2%. [Read more →]

Yesterday Oracle announced that it is acquiring another networking vendor, demonstrating that it’s quite serious about moving into the telecom world. They are buying Tekelec, which specializes in network signaling, policy control, and subscriber management.  [Read more →]

The pan-European network operator Interoute issued its full year 2012 numbers today. Much as it did last year, Interoute credited strong cloud services demand for its solid 2012 growth despite the continued macroeconomic headwinds the region as a whole has had to contend with. [Read more →]

This quarter’s persistent rumor has been of a final resolution of the Verizon/Vodafone situation just beyond the horizon.  Yet thus far the rumors have been quite glib beyond that much. But according to the several UK newspaper articles, there may actually be a deal in the works now with an eye on a summer tie-up. Investors are taking it seriously enough to drive Vodafone’s stock 2.5% this morning. [Read more →]

After touring network maps side by side over in the UK and Scandinavia earlier this month, I decided to evolve the idea further but with US metro network maps.  As it works best for the largest metro markets with recognizable geographies, I thought I’d try looking at the combined Ashburn/DC Metro/Baltimore region – for which I have a dozen.   [Read more →]

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

It’s been said before (in this space and elsewhere) that customer data privacymatters, customers are becoming increasingly aware of that, and are demanding better privacy protections and assurances that their personal data won’t get lost, stolen or abused. [Read more →]

Yesterday Zayo Group (news, filings) announced a partnership with Internet2 to boost its network assets between Chicago and Seattle. When the upgrade is completed this spring, they’ll have over 4Tbps of capacity with which to support Internet2’s 100G network plans to hook up educational and research institutions in the Northern Tier. [Read more →]

It’s been a while, so it’s definitely time for a Friday poll.  Rumors abound that the current FCC Chairman, Julius Genachowski, will be stepping down after four years or so at the helm – in fact the announcement may be coming as soon as today.  Let’s step back for a moment and think about the last four years of US telecom regulatory theater as a whole.  How did he do?  What grade would you give him? [Read more →]

Seems like just four years ago that Julius Genachowski was getting started as FCC chairman. Oh wait it really *was* four years ago, but apparently that was long enough. Various articles are out there now expecting him to follow the Republican commissioner Robert McDowell and step down today.   [Read more →]

Time for a quick roundup of news from around the industry, with items from Exponential-e, XO, IO, Sabey, and Agawi: [Read more →]

It’s still Kansas, but Google Fiber is starting to look beyond Kansas City. In a blog post this week they revealed their intentions to add another city to their 1Gbps FTTH roll-out. So who is the lucky city? It’s the nearby suburb of Olathe, about 20 miles to the southwest. [Read more →]

Today Anova Technologies announced the acquisition of a new microwave-based low latency service terminating at the NASDAQ at 1400 Federal in Carteret, New Jersey.  But it’s the other endpoint that’s what’s different: the carrier hotel in downtown Washington DC at 1275 K Street. [Read more →]

Here’s a quick look at some news on the European front today: [Read more →]

For those who keep track, I have updated each of the competitive telecom financial trends plots to reflect Q4/2012 numbers, except for a few straggling morsels of data that will get here when they get here.  But in addition I am considering changing the relative capex plot to reflect the trailing 12 months rather than the individual quarterly number.  The reason is obvious: capex can be very lumpy, which makes it hard to spot trends.  Before I make the change officially, here’s a first look: [Read more →]

Here’s a few quick takes on news from the data center and cloud side of things, with items from Cologix, Net Access, Interoute, Global Capacity, and  Akamai: [Read more →]

Orange Business Services, the international B2B arm of France Telecom, posted a status update for its cloud computing business today, putting a few numbers behind their segment of the ongoing cloud revolution.  Many telecommunications companies around the world have bet on cloud-based services as a new revenue opportunity, and any visibility [Read more →]

With OFC/NFOEC this week, it was perhaps inevitable that we would get a deluge of 100G-related news. Here’s a quick rundown of news from all the major players: [Read more →]

If there’s one place in the world that Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) is having no problem finding demand, it’s South America. Hence, their announcement today construction plans for a new data center in Colombia won’t come as a total shock.  There has been a steady stream of talk from the company about expanding the company’s infrastructure in the region. [Read more →]

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

In trying to quantify the gains the internet has brought to society, last week’s Free Exchange column in the Economic discussed the concept of the “consumer surplus”, which is the difference between what a consumer is willing to pay and actually pays. [Read more →]

It’s still early yet in the 100G deployment cycle, but we are already starting to see tests of the optical industry’s next gear. Yesterday in Australia, Telstra and Ericsson did just that with a successful 1Tbps trial. [Read more →]

We have another job listing this week, another from Unite Private Networks to go with the other four they still have active: [Read more →]

Plenty of news this week from Europe, so let’s finish off with a quick look at metro fiber moves by Geo, euNetworks, Akado, Vodafone and Orange: [Read more →]