Telecom Ramblings

Earthlink has been busy this year integrating its acquisitions, the largest of which were Deltacom and One Communications, and things seem to be going well.  The company reported its third quarter earnings this morning, with revenues declining less than expected to $357.3M.  Adjusted EBITDA rose slightly sequentially to $90.5M, meaning their adjusted EBITDA margins rose all the way to 25.3%.  Earnings per share of $0.07 were also ahead of analyst projections.  According to CEO Rolla Huff: [Read more →]

Infinera (NASDAQ:INFN, news, filings) announced yesterday that those floods in Thailand will also be hitting close to home, meaning in their wallet. Facilities of one of the company’s suppliers, Fabrinet, saw an escalation of the water’s impact. [Read more →]

Yesterday afternoon, Equinix (NASDAQ:EQIX, news, filings) put forth its Q3 numbers and offered projections for 2012 as well.  Revenues were slightly above the guided range and analyst expectations, as was Adusted EBITDA, however earnings per share fell short of projections as interest expenses were up sharply.  Guidance was raised for the fourth quarter.  Here’s a quick summary of Equinix’s numbers in the context of the past four quarters: [Read more →]

CDN and cloud provider Akamai (NASDAQ:AKAM, news, filings) is up after hours following its Q3 earnings report, something that has been a bit rare lately.  Revenues were a bit above expectations, while earnings were in line.  Both were at the high end of guidance, and the company’s fourth quarter projections were pretty much as expected.  here’s a quick table of the company’s numbers in context: [Read more →]

Ok, this morning along with their earnings report, Sprint’s CEO Dan Hesse also disclosed a tentative, non-binding agreement with Clearwire. The two will work together on Clearwire’s LTE buildout, extending the companies’ relationship beyond the end of 2012 when Sprint said a few weeks ago it would stop selling WiMAX devices and build its own LTE.  The whole thing is a bit fuzzy [Read more →]

Korean-based CDNetworks announced a global channel program today aimed at extending its reach deeper into international destinations. Russia’s MegaFon and Japan’s KDDI have signed on and will deploy and sell the company’s CDN services within their networks, gaining a new revenue stream.  CDNetworks, meanwhile, will gain the benefit of all that infrastructure in those two key markets.  This is similar to the CDN operator’s deal a while back with [Read more →]

Time to catch up on some bandwidth news from this week: [Read more →]

Fresh off its decision to build its own LTE network, Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S, news, filings) reported its Q3 earnings this morning.  Revenues of $8.33B were slightly on the light side, while loss per share of $0.10 was better than expected.  Their cash levels checked in at $4B, enough to make good progress on that LTE buildout assuming they can refinance the $2.3B due in March.  The story diverges, however, [Read more →]

This is a guest post by Paolo Gorgò.  If you might be interested in a guest post, then contact the webmaster.

Equinix (EQIX) will report Q3 earnings on Wednesday, October 26, after the market close. [Read more →]

Yowza, I honestly had no idea 360Networks had done so well by itself since emerging from the ashes of the last bubble with the old Touch America assets. According to an SEC filing recently that a reader pointed out in a comment today, Zayo is paying $345M for the company, making the deal three times larger than any of their prior acquisitions. [Read more →]

Later this year, a new player will formally emerge onto the bandwidth scene in the Middle East.  Gulf Bridge International (GBI), the region’s first privately owned and operated carrier neutral submarine cable will go into service, adding substantially to the diversity and overall connectedness of the Persian Gulf and surrounding areas.  With us today is the co-founder and CEO of GBI, Ahmed Mekky: [Read more →]

Yesterday Akamai offered up its State of the Internet report for Q2, and seeing as there’s not much going on today unless you enjoy the ‘pile on Netflix’ mediapalooza, let’s take a look at a few tidbits: [Read more →]

TeliaSonera AB (ETR:TLS, news, filings) International Carrier said this morning that it has won an expanded agreement for IP transit and colocation throughout the US and Europe with CDNetworks. The Korean-based CDN and managed services company entered the US and Europe in force via its acquisition of Panther Express two years ago, and remains one of the largest CDNs internationally. [Read more →]

Fibertech, which operates metro networks across the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Midwest, has picked gear from Ciena (NASDAQ:CIEN, news, filings) to power a mobile backhaul network. They are building out to 250 cell towers across the state of Connecticut for [Read more →]

Today Equinix (NASDAQ:EQIX, news, filings) introduced a new Marketplace service designed to help its thousands of customers do business amongst themselves. That means not just interconnection, but any of the many data and infrastructure services eac [Read more →]

The other news over the weekend came from Google’s David Drummond, who suggested that the internet giant is ‘looking very closely’ at another fiber project, this time in Europe.  Such a buildout would parallel their ongoing FTTH project in Kansas City, Kansas, which is of course still [Read more →]

There’s a Reuters interview out over the weekend in which Bill LaParch, CEO of AboveNet, sounds eager to make his company’s first M&A move. Most of that is via the word ‘keen’ in the title rather than actual quotes, but still.  He also suggested $600M in debt as a level that AboveNet could support to make a deal happen.  I have long thought that AboveNet made a better buyer than seller in the M&A arena, despite the rumors over the summer.  Let’s take a quick survey of what they might want to buy: [Read more →]

Finally, last week’s rumor balloon has finally been shot down.  Google’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, said earlier today:  “We’re not buying Akamai; we don’t have any plans to do that.”  So that settles that, right?  Until next quarter perhaps – or maybe just until the earnings call on this coming Wednesday.  But either way, what seems certain is that Akamai’s future seems to be in flux, though nobody’s quite sure in what direction.  That’s the subject of today’s Friday poll: [Read more →]

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

Mobile operators in the US, after dragging their feet for years and resisting pressure from the FCC for 18 months, have finally agreed to send customers alerts when they near their limits on voice, SMS and data usage. [Read more →]

As one might have anticipated following Icahn’s final takeover and the appointment of CFO Laura Thomas as interim CEO, the company is now cutting expenses. That means downsizing, headcount reduction, layoffs, whatever you want to call it.  It is not yet clear how extensive the event is, nor which departments have been most affected.  But since the company is fully private now, I doubt they will be telling us anything officially.   [Read more →]

Everyone’s favorite telecommunications giant reported earnings today. Revenues checked in a $31.48B, just slightly below analyst expectations. Earnings per share of $0.61 was right on the button though. Total wireless customers were up 2.1M, slower than when they had exclusive iPhone rights but apparently losing those still hasn’t led to utter disaster.  The iPhone 4S will likely make for an interesting Q4. [Read more →]

Several interesting news items recently on the metro side: [Read more →]

A few days ago when I talked about the possiblity of Sprint selling off its wireline division to pay for its LTE buildout, I focused on only two potential suitors: Level 3 and CenturyLink. But a regular commenter brought up a third bidder that I neglected to mention but which may be just as likely: TW Telecom (NASDAQ:TWTC, news, filings). [Read more →]