Telecom Ramblings

In 2011 we saw huge shifts at the border between telecom and internet infrastructure, as telecommunications companies of all colors and stripes took action to gain a foothold in cloud-based services. The word ‘cloud’ may be an over-used, under-defined buzzword, but it is now quite clear that the revolution that lies underneath it is quite real. As the telecom industry transforms in response we are seeing two quite distinct flavors emerge that in 2012 will continue to diverge. [Read more →]

Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S, news, filings) seems to be eager to get started with their LTE buildout, and I don’t blame them. Much of 2011 has been spent wringing hands (theirs and others) over their future plans and their competitive position if the AT&T/T-Mobile deal were to come to pass. Today the company reaffirmed its aggressive LTE buildout schedule, as part of its Network Vision initiative.  They hope to quickly make up [Read more →]

Did you know that at least five US competitive fiber operators are reporting 1,000 or more buildings on-net than they did last year at this time?  As promised, I have updated my metro fiber and on-net building statistics page to reflect all the fiber buildouts and M&A activity that have taken us through 2011.   You can check the full list of course, but here is a look at some incremental numbers. [Read more →]

Four new job openings were posted to the  Telecom Ramblings Jobs Board this week, making this the best December so far at least in one small way.  I have plans to change the jobs board over from the current limited, hosted system to something a bit more extensive, but that will [Read more →]

Yep, you heard me right.  After the plethora of smaller fiber deals in 2010 and this years larger combinations, I think 2012 is going to be a bit quieter on the M&A front. Part of the reason is simply that most of the low hanging fruit has been picked, and most of the assets out there are now in the hands of owners that know what to do with them – or at least [Read more →]

Well, the rumors turned into reality this time, as this mornings headlines have Akamai (NASDAQ:AKAM, news, filings) signing a definitive agreement to buy upstart competitor cotendo.  Talk of such a deal started bubbling up after Thanksgiving, and there were solid strategic reasons behind the combination.  But the rumored price tag overshot the mark slightly, as Akamai will be paying [Read more →]

Last January, I highlighted one of the more unlikely submarine cable plans that I had seen out there, connecting East Asia directly to Europe via the Arctic Ocean. Well whether the same protagonists are involved or not it seems as if the idea itself is still alive, as yesterday WFN Strategies signed on to help design and implement the Arctic Fibre cable system.  [Read more →]

Former Zayo President & COO John Scarano has resurfaced at quite some distance from Colorado to join the management team at euNetworks.  The independent European metro provider has combined its Finance and Operations teams into a single core function, which Scarano will lead as EVP of Finance, Operations & Corporate Development.  He has also been appointed as Vice Chairman to the Board, while Uwe Nickl also joins the board as an Executive Director. [Read more →]

And here’s a quick take of a few more items, this time from the network side of the tracks: [Read more →]

Christmas is nearly upon us, but there’s still interesting stuff going on this week.  Here’s a quick take on several such items from the colo space this week: [Read more →]

This article was authored by Tony Poulos, and was originally posted on telecomasia.net.

I’ve decided there’s nothing wrong with being dumb. These days just having a smartphone handy can make the dumbest person absolutely brilliant, as long as he’s smart enough to use the smartphone. However, when it comes to being a network operator, the word “dumb”, when used with that other hackneyed noun, “pipe”, sends shivers down telco CEO spines. [Read more →]

Now that AT&T’s intended purchase of T-Mobile USA is finally officially dead, the pressure will quickly build on Deutsche Telekom to come up with a Plan B.  They have insisted they don’t have one yet, but I am sure there are all sorts of conversations going on already internally.  The unit doesn’t have enough spectrum to build out LTE, they has been bleeding customers all year, and their current situation is obviously unstable. But the breakup fee could make a real difference if applied in the right direction. What should they do?  Well, if you read Ramblings you know my thoughts on the matter, but what are yours?  Here’s a poll to see what the mood is.  Don’t be limited [Read more →]

Japanese telecommunications giant NTT Communications (NYSE:NTT, news, filings) has many pots on the stove these days, with three interesting expansive notes in three different geographies. [Read more →]

It’s over.  AT&T has thrown in the towel, knuckled under, cried uncle, retired from the field, raised the white flag. Whatever you call it, they have officially given up their attempt to purchase T-Mobile USA and agreed to pay the breakup fee of $4B in cash, spectrum, and roaming rights.  The combined weight of the opposition of the DOJ and FCC had made it all but impossible to continue, though I’m still somewhat surprised that the company didn’t even take the rest of the 30 [Read more →]

Today CenturyLink (NYSE:CTL, news, filings) announced a big federal bandwidth project, winning a multi-year task order from DISA/DITCO worth up to $250M over the life of the contract. They will be providing private line services ranging all the way from DS-0 through [Read more →]

Global network operator Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) said today that it is playing an important role in California’s $66.6M Central Valley Next Generation Broadband Infrastructure Project. The buildout, which is partly funded by $46.6M in stimulus funds, is creating 1,300 miles of fiber infrastructure throughout 18 counties in the Central Valley – a.k.a the place they grow everything. [Read more →]

There’s another company out there aiming to partner with network operators on CDN technology. VidScale (news), which until now has had mostly Asian customers, has now moved into the US cable MSO market with a win at Avail-TVN today.  Avail-TVN will leverage the company’s MedaWarp software to integrate both transparent caching and commercial CDN services into their [Read more →]

The Middle East has itself a new cable system today, as TE Subcom and Gulf Bridge International (news) have formally announced the completion of work on the cable system, saying that the whole system will be ‘Ready for Service’ [Read more →]

Following the purchase of PAETEC by Windstream (NYSE:WIN, news, filings) which closed earlier this month, there was obviously going to be some musical chair activity amongst the combined pool of executives. At least two from PAETEC’s leadership have shown up in the past few days in new positions before the Christmas holidays start. Arunas Chesonis has resurfaced in a completely different industry, while Clint Heiden is back in the fiber business. [Read more →]

After a slow few months, the Telecom Ramblings Jobs Board is seeing some holiday activity.  We have another job posting, this time from Sirius Telecom – a provider of hosted softswitch partition services.  They are looking for [Read more →]

Apparently the holiday season is treating magicJack VocalTec (NASDAQ:CALL, news, filings) very well.  The company said today that it has sold over 365,000 of its magicJack devices in the past 30 days, and is now expecting $55-60M in sales for the fourth quarter.  By next month, they expect to have [Read more →]

After last year’s orgy of private equity-driven metro fiber consolidation,  2011 has been quite a different story. Public companies did most of the heavy M&A lifting this year, with two [Read more →]