Telecom Ramblings

This morning, the pan-European network operator Colt Group (LON:COLT, news) announced new initiatives to cut costs and adjust to the shifting European service provider market. The company has for years now been managing a transition from legacy voice services into a more data-centric approach, and is now choosing to accelerate the process further. [Read more →]

TW Telecom (NASDAQ:TWTC, news, filings) is expanding its national metro fiber footprint into a new metro area. They’ve built out fiber in Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls up in the Idaho Panhandle, stretching to the east from their existing Spokane market presence across the border in Washington. The expansion will bring tw telecom’s [Read more →]

As last year ended, I predicted that fiber M&A activity in the USA would decrease for 2012. Zayo’s Dan Caruso set out to prove me wrong of course, with six of his seven acquisitions aimed at yet more fiber. But beyond Zayo, I seem to have been right because it was pretty sparse when it came to fiber-related deals. [Read more →]

Time for a quick look at what’s been going on in the metro, with items from Zayo, Comcast Business, TelePacific, Integra Telecom, and tw telecom: [Read more →]

It’s officially tentative now: clwr has agreed to be acquired by its majority holder Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S, news, filings) for $2.97/share for the half Sprint doesn’t already own. Official because they’ve entered into a definitive agreement, and tentative because it won’t close until after the Softbank transaction does and is probably going to face some minority shareholder challenges in the meantime. [Read more →]

Europe’s euNetworks (news) is on the move this last week before Christmas in the London metro area. They announced the addition of Basildon to the company’s dedicated finance network, and unveiled a new ultra-low latency route between Basildon and Frankfurt. [Read more →]

As the year comes to a close, the content delivery giant Akamai (NASDAQ:AKAM, news, filings) is choreographing its changing of the guard. Earlier this year CEO Paul Sagan announced he would be leaving, but the search for a replacement didn’t stray too far from the tree. Today the company is formally announcing that co-founder and current Chief Scientist Dr. Tom Leighton is taking the reins. They’re also promoting two senior executives to help add operational muscle to the team.  [Read more →]

Seven times lucky, or so Zayo Group (news, filings) hopes as they have now announced their seventh acquisition of the year.  They are buying Baltimore’s Litecast for $22M in what is probably their final deal of the year, although there’s still two weeks left and you just never know. [Read more →]

Time for a quick look at news on the international front this week from NTT, GTS Central Europe, CDNetworks, and Level 3. [Read more →]

The quarterly results from Ciena (NASDAQ:CIEN, news, filings) offer up a regular off-month peak into the market, and today’s was a bit wintery.  The company’s fiscal fourth quarter results were in the right ballpark as compared with guidance, but the company’s forecast for their fiscal Q1 were on the light side in an echo of what we saw three months ago: [Read more →]

The rumors finally panned out, as a regulatory filing this morning revealed that Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S, news, filings) has proposed to buy the 49% of Clearwire that it doesn’t own at $2.90 per share. That would total about $2.1B if it comes to pass, but this is still early in the process.  [Read more →]

Seems like everyone is putting in their 100G two cents in the second half of 2012, preparing for when the technology really comes into its own next year. This morning, one of the earliest deployers of 100G updated the status of its current adoption: Verizon (NYSE:VZ, news, filings). [Read more →]

2012 is winding down, but network M&A isn’t on vacation yet — at least in Texas.  This morning Alpheus Communications made its first inorganic expansion move in recent history, announcing the acquisition of Net Star Telecommunications.   [Read more →]

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

We hear more and more about the idea of multi-screen culture, in which users will expect more and more of their content to be available seamlessly on their smartphones, tablets, laptops and TV sets. That creates a dilemma for mobile advertisers who are struggling just to [Read more →]

In this week’s chapter of how the wireless world turns, will Sprint finally get it over with at Clearwire, and why does Dish look so depressed now that it has official permission to enter the wireless biz at last? Ah well, it may be getting old but it’s still drama. [Read more →]

Zayo Group (news, filings) isn’t wasting time putting its newly national footprint to work.  Less than six months after closing the AboveNet deal closed and a year since picking up 360Networks’ western fiber infrastructure, they’re putting 100G gear on the combined assets. [Read more →]

Few things have perplexed me as much as the goings on in Dubai this past week. The ITU summit has purported to be ready to update the treaty that underlies telecommunications regulations worldwide, but reality has clearly intruded in the form of gridlock. [Read more →]

Time for a quick roundup of items in the datacenter marketplace: [Read more →]

While in the US fiber network consolidation has moved into later stages, abroad there is still plenty of room left to run.  Late last week a bit more of it happened down under, as Australia’s Vocus Communications announced an agreement to purchase Ipera Communications.   [Read more →]

Telefonica’s Global Solutions division has selected Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO, news, filings) for a next generation backbone upgrade. They’ll be basing the new infrastructure on Cisco’s CRS-3 router in the core and their ASR 9000 at the edge. [Read more →]

The Indian mobile giant Bharti Airtel is putting money into an African IP backbone, and Alcatel-Lucent is providing the technology behind it. Bharti has 17 affiliates in various spots around Africa, and is building an IP/MPLS transport and backhaul network to handle the growing data needs. [Read more →]

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Cam Cullen, vice president of global marketing at Procera Networks.  

IPv6 continues to be a topic of great interest to ISPs. A survey done by Nominum in conjunction with IPv6 Day shows that Europe is entering a critical phase in dealing with IP address shortages. Europe is served by [Read more →]

We have a new job listing on the Ramblings’ Jobs board this week from none other than Zayo, and four others still active as well. [Read more →]