Telecom Ramblings

With all its recent restructuring news lately, Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO, news, filings) could use a break.  So what better time for a big new product upgrade?  That’s Cisco’s medicine today, as it unveiled a new ASR 9000 router.  The new gear will deliver 96Tbps and promises up to 70% savings on operating expenses.  Embedded within is the company’s new nV network virtualization technology.   96Tbps is a lot of bandwidth to be needing in a single box, but [Read more →]

Since news broke that abvt has brought in JP Morgan to advise it on a potential sale, speculation has centered on who might buy them and for how much.  A recent note from BWS agrees with my thinking though: that they’re probably only going to sell if offered some serious money.  But I think another dynamic is on the rise as well: that AboveNet is increasingly well positioned to do the buying rather than the selling.   The line between hunter and prey can be [Read more →]

Rumored for months, Apple today unveiled the iCloud, which is designed to serve as the central hub for data and content downloaded from Apple for various devices.  The intent is to replace the PC as the place you go to synchronize everything, which has been annoying for quite a long time IMHO.  The iCloud is free, and updates will supposedly be daily over WiFi in order to not clog [Read more →]

On their corporate blog, Orange Business asks “Are the IT department’s days numbered?”    The idea is that with the rise of cloud computing and a proliferation of IT resources being offered as a service, will corporations even need an IT department?  Well, Orange Business isn’t exactly a neutral observer here, as they do big business in IT and network outsourcing, and their chief competitor is often [Read more →]

As longtime readers know, in addition to map links I keep track of metro route miles and fiber-fed building counts for all companies in the sector for whom I can find such data, which is most of the competitive providers but thus far not the ILECs and the cable MSOs (with one or two exceptions).  I last updated my list over the Christmas break, and thus it is time to do it again.  Thus if you know of fiber out there that ought to be on my list but isn’t, or of inaccuracies that could be corrected – please [Read more →]

Hmmm, I think they’re serious about this cost cutting thing.  clwr has signed with Telech to outsource its customer support.  Some 700 Clearwire employees will immediately switch companies, although Clearwire is keeping about 180 of them for the back office.  Most of the company’s 6M+ subscribers are wholesale through Sprint, and therefore won’t notice of course.  This follows Clearwire’s move a couple of weeks ago to outsource its network operations to Ericsson, which similarly moved [Read more →]

TGIF.  A few more fiber-network-related items this week to catch up on:

In Texas, regional and metro fiber operator Alpheus Communications expanded its Metrolocity offering, adding Ethernet peering capabilities.  They have 31 customers amongst the competitive wireless and wireline operators in the state, and the new service is available immediately.  Alpheus is one of the only fiber assets that was [Read more →]

There are few companies out there giving off as many contradictory signals as wholesale wireless carrier-to-be LightSquared.  This week, we had no less than three news items that just left me generally puzzled.  First there was the news that the company was talking with AT&T (NYSE:T, news, filings) about leasing 4G network capacity.  The fact that it was one 4G network that doesn’t yet exist talking to another 4G network that also doesn’t exist about was dissonant enough, but [Read more →]

Making friends is a valuable skill, and northeastern fiber operator sidera has been working overtime lately to get it right.  Last week they teamed up with the UK’s Exponential-e, and this week it was the turn of Colt Group (LON:COLT, news) and Spread Networks (news). [Read more →]

Back in February, Milan-centric metro fiber company Metroweb was said to be up for sale, and that Telecom Italia was the frontrunner.  Well the wind must have shifted since then, because Bloomberg is reporting that infrastructure fund F2i and Intesa Sanpaolo’s IMI Investimenti unit have won the auction for some €436M, or $628M.  Given the impressive price tag, they must have been doing rather well – this was obviously not [Read more →]

As you may have noticed by now, a lot of fiber appears to be on the market, with AboveNet, Sidera, Fiberlight, and others rumored.  But prices are high and some of the historically more active buyers aren’t looking that eager.  Notably, in the past week or two both PAETEC and Level 3 have indicated they aren’t likely to be out there bidding.  Here’s a quote from PAETEC’s CEO Arunas Chesonis from the company’s recent investor day: [Read more →]

Lots of news this week from the colocation sector: [Read more →]

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO, news, filings) has never been shy about making bandwidth projections, and today they issued some new ones.  Their fifth annual Visual Networking Index Forecast says that in 2015 global internet traffic will reach 966 exabytes per year, just shy of a zettabyte.  Remember when people worried about (or praying for) the exaflood?  Yep, it’s time for the zettaflood now, and the culprits are [Read more →]

This is a guest post by Paolo Gorgò, who blogs over at both Nortia Research and Seeking Alpha.  If you might be interested in a guest post may contact the webmaster.

21Vianet Group (NASDAQ:VNET, news, filings), the largest carrier-neutral Internet data center services provider in China, will be reporting Q1 2011 earnings today, after market [Read more →]

Three deals closed earlier today, let’s take a quick look: [Read more →]

Nothing burns bandwidth like video, and so when Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) announced two television-related contracts it certainly can’t be a bad thing.  The first is for bandwidth at Information Television Network (ITV) down in Florida, which produces ‘health and wellness broadcast programming’ which must be on the channels I usually skip over.  ITV will be initially leveraging a fiber build into their studio to support their production needs plus a [Read more →]

The US may pause on the last Monday of May, but the rest of the world still goes on.  Here are a few things that happened since: [Read more →]

Last week, news broke across various media outlets that abvt has hired JP Morgan Chase to advise it on a potential sale of the company.  Since then, I have seen lots of speculation about who might actually do the buying if such a deal came to pass.  My own opinion is that CenturyLink probably has the most optimal combination of means, motive, and opportunity, but I am hardly the last word on the subject and others make solid cases for private equity, Verizon, TW Telecom, Level 3, and even Sprint.  So here’s a poll of Rambling’s readers to help clarify the waters a bit, or perhaps muddy them further: [Read more →]

To those of you in the US, stop reading this and go outside for Memorial Day!  Unless you’re in the Midwest, in which case you should probably hide because Mother Nature still seems to be pissed off about something.  But if you’re still here, let’s take a moment and contemplate Google Wallet.  Because I just don’t get it. [Read more →]

When the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan back in March, one of the bits of infrastructure that did manage to withstand much of the devastation was telecommunications networks.  But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t damage.  Several undersea cables were in fact knocked offline, but the loops did the job they were designed to do.  One of those cables was Pacific Crossing’s PC-1, whose north link between Ajigaura and Harbour Point and west link between Ajigaura and Shima were both damaged.  Yesterday Pacific Crossing and its owner telecom announced [Read more →]

Lots of fiber and network news this week.  We wouldn’t want the colo guys to feel ignored, so let’s catch up before the long weekend gets rolling:

European carrier-neutral colocation provider InterXion (NYSE:INXN, news) has completed its expansion at its DUS1 facility in Dusseldorf, which houses the DE-CIX Düsseldorf and ECIX exchanges amongst a bevvy of [Read more →]

Some of you may have noticed the banner at the lower right already, but Telecom Ramblings is proud to be a media sponsor of the Telecom Exchange this June 29.  In fact, I expect to do something I have rarely managed to do when it comes to conferences and meetings.  Assuming the travel gods [Read more →]

This summer, AT&T (NYSE:T, news, filings) will finally get around to deploying LTE in its first five markets.  I say finally because both Verizon Wireless and MetroPCS managed to pull that step off in 2010, and because the company has been selling the iPhone on its 3G network for years now – a device that really ought to be on a big bandwidth connection.  But actually AT&T is hurrying things up a bit, they had planned to wait longer.  The reason is obvious though, they don’t want the lack of an LTE foothold to add to the headwinds they may face from [Read more →]