Telecom Ramblings

In the weeks running up to AfricaCom 2023 (part of the Africa Tech Festival, the largest digital infrastructure event in Africa – takes place November 14 to 16 in Cape Town), there is a lot of preparation work to do on site, so I have been watching a fair amount of South African television recently. And this has really opened my eyes to the prevalence of the use of SMS text messaging by South African organisations of all shapes, types, and sizes to both communicate with existing clients and help reel in the new. It’s very simple: viewers see [Read more →]

EXA Infrastructure has been putting some significant effort into its footprint in southeastern Europe this year. Today that effort is taking them across the Aegean Sea to directly connect Crete to their fiber network and bring bandwidth to the mythical home of the minotaur. [Read more →]

Three items from midweek: [Read more →]

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Suzy Menneret, Wholesale Advisor and Program Lead at the Mobile Ecosystem Forum (MEF)

One thing that has been a constant in the existence of a Mobile Network Operator over time is the ownership of two core elements: the network and the customer relationship.

This has been historically true in the consumer segment as a large proportion [Read more →]

More news from around the world to catch up with: [Read more →]

While readers in the US get started again after the Thanksgiving weekend, the rest of the world has remained busy.  Here are our interesting bits of data center news from four continents: [Read more →]

A new data center and three interesting bits of vendor news from around the globe: [Read more →]

Interesting bits of infrastructure news from around the world to keep up with: [Read more →]

Zayo has gotten in some pre-Thanksgiving M&A activity, and in a somewhat surprising direction. The Boulder-based infrastructure provider has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Globalways GmbH. [Read more →]

Five infrastructure projects touching five continents: [Read more →]

This Industry Spotlight  was authored by Soma Naidoo, Global Head of Telco at Endava

Did you know that roughly half the global population would rather have their smartphone instead of their wallet when away from home? An unsurprising trend given that the rate at which we rely on our digital devices grows every day. This has a direct impact on the telecommunications industry and is intensifying the already fierce competition among carriers and networks. [Read more →]

A collection of interesting items from around the sector this week: [Read more →]

A clutch of regional fiber projects to catch up on from around the country: [Read more →]

Data center development in northern Virginia is never done. DataBank said this week that it will be building a major new campus a bit further southwest of the DC area than the main clusters of Ashburn. [Read more →]

Bell Canada has tapped FirstLight Fiber to help deploy new connectivity options between the Canadian hubs of Toronto and Montreal and the NY metro area, and more specifically Secaucus NJ. The three new routes will support speeds up to 400G, each terminating in Equinix’s Secaucus data center campus. [Read more →]

As the 5G revolution rolls on, coverage specialists like Nextivity are seeing more room to run in the enterprise space and beyond. Maintaining coverage everywhere within an enterprise location is key to using the next generation of automation and connected device technologies. The range of communications tasks that can be called ‘critical’ is only going to grow from here. Nextivity and others are actively preparing for that future. With us today to tell us about Nextivity’s approach and the company’s plans for the future is Stephen Kowal, Chief Commercial Officer. [Read more →]

A new CEO plus several new expansion projects from international service providers: [Read more →]

Last week ended with some interesting consolidation in the area of private wireless networks. Boldyn Networks has announced an agreement to acquire EDZCOM from Cellnex, which is their private networks business unit. EDZCOM’s team will help Boldyn flesh out its depth in Western Europe and set the stage for growth across the region. [Read more →]

New York City is one of the biggest commercial markets in the world, but it has long been one of the most difficult places to build infrastructure.  Manhattan is one thing, but few providers have historically been brave enough to venture out to the other boroughs like Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx in force.  With us today is Doug Turtz, who took over at Skywire and Xchange Telecom earlier this year.  Rebranding under the moniker ‘Skywire powered by Xchange’, the company is gearing up to take its hybrid fixed-wireless and fiber approach to a wide swath of underserved destinations around the metro area. [Read more →]

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Mikko Jarva, Head of Portfolio & Architecture, Network Monetization Platform at Nokia

With 5G deployments now widespread in many markets, telecom network providers are ushering in a new era to enable the building of new and improved software applications that enrich the network experience of business customers and consumers while generating new revenue streams. [Read more →]

Two items of M&A, one expansion, and an ecosystem partnership: [Read more →]

Over in western Europe, euNetworks has made some new investments into its low latency connectivity between key financial exchanges. They are now claiming to deliver the lowest latency to the Euronext exchange from both London and Frankfurt. [Read more →]

Lumen has won another significant federal contract, building upon the success. They will be operating and maintaining the fiber backbone of the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). [Read more →]