Telecom Ramblings

It looks like there may be another new transatlantic cable in town soon.  Emerald Atlantis and TE SubCom announced the finalization of an agreement to build the Emerald Express Trans-Atlantic Cable System.  And what a system it would be too, supporting 100x100Gbps on each of six fiber pairs – which would add up to 60Tbps I believe.  The marine cable route survey begins in August, and the target date for the cable to be in service would be [Read more →]

Force10 Networks has apparently finally found a home according to reports today.  Dell, the giant computer maker, will be buying the company according to reports today as part of an effort to raise its profile with enterprise customers and of course the cloud.  The deal is expected to close [Read more →]

Time for a quick roundup of various news bytes from network operators this week: [Read more →]

Texas-based Data Foundry (news) has opened the doors of its giant new Texas 1 datacenter in Austin.  Phase one of the project is now complete, and customers are moving in.  That brings 250,000 square feet online in central Texas in addition to their ADC and HDC facilities in Austin and Houston, respectively.    They’ve been working on it for [Read more →]

Infinera (NASDAQ:INFN, news, filings), maker of longhaul and metro DWDM gear, helped kick off the earnings season today with its Q2 results.  Revenue of $96.0M was at the high end of guidance and a hair above analyst consensus.  Non-GAAP loss per share was 11 cents and non-GAAP gross margins checked in at 41%, both of which were inline with both guidance and estimates.  Here is a quick table summarizing their numbers in the context of the last few quarters: [Read more →]

Not that much going on today in the world of news, but we have more activity on the Telecom Ramblings Jobs Board – perhaps defying recent layoff news from Cisco just a little bit.   Today we have another job posting from metro fiber builder and operator Optical Communications Group (OCG) in [Read more →]

Yesterday Ciena (NASDAQ:CIEN, news, filings) won yet another 100G contract, but this time it was further off the beaten path than usual.  The Romanian research network RoEduNet will be using the optical equipment manufacturer’s coherent optical technology to power the first live 100GbE network in Eastern Europe.  Their partner Felix Telecom will be handling the [Read more →]

Limelight Networks (NASDAQ:LLNW, news, filings) expanded its stomping grounds deeper into the Middle Eastern marketplace with a win at MBC.  The Middle East Broadcasting Center (MBC) has selected the evolving content delivery company as its sole solutions provider for video publishing, site acceleration, and [Read more →]

In what is probably the year’s least surprising downsizing event, Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO, news, filings) has detailed the headcount reductions they will make as the company tries to find its way back to the future by finding $1B in annual savings.  They will reduce their global workforce by 6,500, of whom approximately 2,100 will come via [Read more →]

Northeastern regional and metro fiber operator sidera has been busy increasing its depth at datacenters in its region lately.  Today they [Read more →]

European mobile giant Vodafone Group (NYSE:VOD, news, filings) is preparing for its LTE rollout, and reports trickling out of Germany suggests that euNetworks (news) has picked up the backhaul contract for it in four of Germany’s largest markets.  Vodafone and euNetworks will be cooperating in the buildout of backhaul networks spanning the metropolitan areas of [Read more →]

Apparently, those New Zealanders remain quite serious about building that transpacific cable they’ve been pushing for more than a year.  According to Australian outlet itNews, they now have selected TE Connectivity to do the actual construction of the cable after tendering for bidders back in the Spring. TE Connectivity, which we once new as Tyco Electronics, operates TE SubCom, which we once knew as Tyco Telecom and which will surely be doing the actual work here.  The price tag, according to the report, could be as much as [Read more →]

The US employment rate may still be struggling to find a way down, but in the world of fiber things still seem to be picking up – at least if the number of postings to the Ramblings’ Jobs Board are any measure.  Last week brought yet another new posting, this time from AboveNet Communications. [Read more →]

Ok, seeing as it’s Friday and this week’s largest discussion topics have focused on XO, I’m going to use a post to take a stab at answering a question posed by a reader about Icahn’s latest move on the company: [Read more →]

It’s a done deal, CenturyLink (NYSE:CTL, news, filings) has completed the purchase of Savvis, continuing the tranformation of what was once a lesser-known copper-heavy ILEC into a global fiber and datacenter operator. The deal was just announced on April 27, meaning they got this done in a mere [Read more →]

While our awareness of the IPv6 transition peaked in June with World IPv6 Day and has seemed to ebb dramatically since, the work is still going on in the background.  LightReading has this interesting piece on why the mobile carriers have been so quiet on the subject, especially since it is the proliferation of billions of moving IP endpoints that more than anything dooms IPv4. [Read more →]

Recently the DOJ has asked Level 3 for more information about its proposed purchase of Global Crossing, and XO has filed objections claiming the deal would create a ‘global colossus’ that would dominate the Tier 1 backbone market and damage the competitive environment. It seems odd to me that a sector that has suffered from some of the toughest pricing pressures in the industry for a decade would be so delicately balanced that it would swing the other way with one deal, but then the Tier 1 backbone peering/transit system has always been an odd place that nobody really understands. What do you think? [Read more →]

The debt markets continue to be favorable, and so Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) is looking to add to its cash supply in advance of its purchase of glbc.  They announced today a proposed private offering of another $300M in 8.125% senior notes due 2019, adding to the $600M they raised a month ago.  These would also go into escrow, waiting for the time when they would be used to refinance Global Crossing’s debt.  If, like last month, they raise $100M more than originally offered, they’ll have raised [Read more →]

Time to catch up on a few interesting tidbits across the industry:

Internap Network Services (NASDAQ:INAP, news, filings) won an expanded for its colocation and high end IP services, announcing that AudienceScience is using their footprint to support [Read more →]

Cox has long leased various services from Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) to power its national network, and today they expanded that strategic relationship further.  This new agreement spans multiple areas:  [Read more →]

While the goings on at XO and Level 3 have dominated the sector news this week, there have been a few expansionary notes worth a look: [Read more →]

Yesterday, FiberLight has teamed up with Global Capacity to improve its access capabilities.  They’ll be using the One Marketplace Access Exchange to both offer their own last mile services and generate quotes to go off-net.  I haven’t seen FiberLight going off-net that much, they tend to focus on their own fiber footprint – so this could suggest an [Read more →]

Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) revealed today that it has received a request for additional information from the Department of Justice regarding the proposed Global Crossing merger.  Commonly known as a second request, this is what the DOJ does when it has more questions about possible anti-competitive aspects of a deal and can involve killing a lot of trees. [Read more →]