Telecom Ramblings

Yesterday, telecommunications giant AT&T (NYSE:T, news, filings) announced it is re-entering the CDN marketplace, an action which they have been telegraphing for several quarters.   They last did this back in 2008 just before every telecom on the planet started salivating over over entering the CDN space, planning to spend up to $70M to roll their own system that would compete against Akamai, Limelight, and the rest of the field.  Well, we all know that never materialized in any real way, much as the overall telecom threat to the CDN space fizzled out except for Level 3.  This time around AT&T is no longer doing this in-house, but instead is using licensed technology from [Read more →]

Western regional operator 360Networks continues to beef up its portfolio, announcing today a new 640 mile route between Dallas and El Paso.  The company has installed gear from Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:ALU, news, filings) on the new link capable of 100G, which of course will probably have to wait for demand. 360Networks was already in Dallas of course, and they had fiber running through El Paso too.  But there was no direct connectivity between the two except through Denver.  The buildout completes that hole in their network and also brings three new markets on-net for the company: [Read more →]

Back in mid-2009, Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) unveiled a new plan to take better advantage of its local assets by decentralizing decision-making power and investing in locally focused personnel.  They went on to take the concept to several dozen markets over the next year or so, and then spent the following year turning those markets into growth engines – and touted the improving results in the mid-Market division that followed.  But those markets were not the only ones it seemed as if Level 3 had the assets to tackle in this way, and so I was pleased to see them [Read more →]

Recent reports that Cable & Wireless was considering a $500M offer from Pacnet for its international division came to a swift end this morning.  Followup reports say the company has issued a statement indicating it had ‘considered and rejected that approach’.  Whether or not the potential sale of its internation division remains (or ever was) on the table is unclear.  But $500M was clearly too [Read more →]

Northeastern fiber operator Lightower Fiber Networks (news) is further increasing its metro depth to the north and east of New York City.  The company announced expansion plans up in Westchester and Connecticut today that will extend the company’s metro and regional coverage further into key suburban regions of its turf – the triangle formed by the Big Apple, Boston, and Albany.  [Read more →]

Several interesting bits of fiber news already this week: [Read more →]

According to Dan Rayburn, Akamai (NASDAQ:AKAM, news, filings) is preparing to shake up the CDN space by licensing its software to network operators.  Doing so would enable carriers, CLECs, and ISPs to incorporate Akamai’s technology into their own networks as an alternative to building their own – whether that is [Read more →]

Apparently it isn’t just the US fiber market that is seeing a surge in M&A activity.  According to a report in the Financial Times today, UK-based Cable & Wireless is considering the sale of its international division.  And apparently, there is already a bidder out there – Pacnet apparently has put a $500M bid on the table.  If the rumor is true though, there are probably other bidders out there that would drive up that price.  But first, a bit of perspective from the company’s numbers. [Read more →]

As we saw with VoIP, Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA, news, filings) doesn’t move quickly but when it does move the momentum can be very impressive.  It is the mid-sized business market that is getting a lot of the MSO’s attention right now, and last month they formally announced Metro Ethernet services across twenty markets.  Today we learned that Ciena (NASDAQ:CIEN, news, filings) and Juniper Networks (NASDAQ:JNPR, news, filings) are supplying the gear powering that effort.  [Read more →]

Here’s another fiber play by private equity, this time up in the Northeast with two providers that I haven’t run into before.  Boston’s Riverside Partners is putting money into segTEL, becoming its largest shareholder.  segTEL operates a fiberoptic network in the upper New England states of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine which by September is expected to exceed [Read more →]

It looks to me as if Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S, news, filings) has finally made up its mind about its 4G future.  Over the past year the company has been gradually turning around its 2G/3G business, but not-so private disagreements with clwr and persistent rumors about other options have made it obvious the company has been struggling to decide where to go from here.  Over the weekend, numerous reports have it that the company has signed a network sharing deal with LightSquared, and while not a week has gone by without [Read more →]

Over on the Jobs Board, we have three new job postings from Lightower, which operates one of the most extensive metro and regional footprints in the northeast.  That Lightower is hiring is another telling sign that last year’s metro fiber M&A binge was not about synergies but rather about assembling a platform for accelerating growth.  In 2010 and into the beginning of 2011, the company purchased Veroxity, Lexent Metro Connect, and Open Access, and then went and did a deal for NSTAR’s remaining fiber capacity as well.  After all that, they are looking for [Read more →]

Another week, another roundup to catch up with the stuff that I didn’t spot on my first troll through the news:

Remember that TAT-14 upgrade we heard about last month, the contract for which went to Mitsubishi Electric?  Well it looks as if TeliaSonera AB (ETR:TLS, news, filings) is the driving [Read more →]

Joining us for a quick Q&A today is Craig Hurley, Senior Product Manager at NTT America.  The telecommunications industry as a whole has spent the last several quarters rapidly positioning itself for the cloud computing revolution, and one of the most active of all has been NTT.  As a top internet backbone operator that has long offered managed hosting to the enterprise space, the company seems as ready as any out telecommunications company out there to benefit from the shift to the cloud.  They started off with a public cloud effort last year, but in April took the next step and [Read more →]

Northeastern fiber operator Sidera Networks is said yesterday that it will be providing connectivity out to ancotel’s facility out on Long Island.  This is the former LIDARC facility at 1025 Old Country Road in Westbury, NY that German-based ancotel purchased last summer.  It is their gateway to transatlantic and Latin American cable landings along the Long Island shore, and has connectivity through Brooklyn and Staten Island into New Jersey without setting foot in [Read more →]

Hibernia Atlantic is taking the next step toward construction of the first transatlantic cable in a decade.  They are beginning the deep sea submarine survey of the route the cable will take, with three ships taking part.  By surveying the ocean floor they can make sure the path is clear and provide data to Huawei, who will [Read more →]

Since opening the curtains on its ultra-low latency fiber build between the New York and Chicago metro areas, financial bandwidth upstart Spread Networks has been steadily filling out both its product portfolio and its metro footprint.  In the past few days they’ve done a bit of [Read more →]

Following up on my update to the metro fiber provider and on-net building list, here is a color-coded table showing the ratio of metro route miles to number of buildings connected.  I’m not implying a race to the top (or bottom) of this table, just taking a cue from the numbers when it comes to understanding who does what and why across the sector: [Read more →]

The Southern Cross cable system, which has for a decade been the primary connection between the US and down under, has successfully trialed 100G.  The trial took place during the testing of 40G equipment aimed at the cable’s anticipated 2012 expansion.  They also said the 40G gear will take total network potential above 6Tbps, so presumably 100G would bring that above 10Tbps when the time comes although the number of wavelengths would surely [Read more →]

The New York Post has an article as of early this morning quoting sources who say that AboveNet has indeed managed to attract a binding offer from a private equity group – the terms of which aren’t yet known.  We know of course that there is an auction of sorts going on, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this were the case – although it doesn’t sound as if the fat lady has sung yet.   Last I heard, [Read more →]

Continuing its attack on the value added end of the CDN marketplace, cotendo unveiled a Mobile Acceleration Suite aimed at the burgeoning wireless content arena.  Handling wireless data loads is quickly becoming the most vexing problem of the technology industry for both wireless network operators, who are seeking to align the economics of customer usage and infrastructure build-outs, and content providers, who fight over eyeballs that are quickly lost when things slow down.  [Read more →]

Datacenter REIT CoreSite (NYSE:COR, news, filings) picked up a new customer to help fill out the 437,000 square feet they operate in Los Angeles.  International tier 1 IP carrier TeliaSonera AB (ETR:TLS, news, filings) is opening its latest PoP there as part of its efforts to serve the gaming community. Teliasonera is already in another of CoreSite’s facilities in the region as well as one in DC – apparently [Read more →]

Telefonica International Wholesale and Orange Business have teamed up for telepresence.  The agreement will enable each to offer telepresence sessions between their respective clients.   Both companies are part of Polycom’s Open Visual Communications Consortium, and the goal is an open environment for telepresence interoperability that will help the emerging segment make that final push past the [Read more →]