Telecom Ramblings

Financial bandwidth upstart Spread Networks (news) added another reseller to its portfolio today.  Managed service provider CFN Services will be offering the company’s low latency wavelengths to the financial community, effective immediately.  Spread just announced a reduction in the latency of those waves, down to 14.6ms (14.75ms SLA’d), and I noted yesterday that [Read more →]

Fresh off the announcement of its first ever dividend, Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO, news, filings) is going on the M&A warpath again.  This time the target is privately held software provider newScale.  The California-based newScale’s products deliver a service catalog and portal for IT organizations to deploy cloud services.  Cisco will use the technology to fill out its cloud portfolio, giving it more depth in what it can sell to enterprises.  Having a ready-made self service portal makes sense in that capacity, and buying an existing [Read more →]

As if there were any doubt about Sprint’s feelings on the subject, Sprint has formally announced its opposition to the purchase:

AT&T and Verizon are already by far the largest wireless providers. If approved, the proposed acquisition would create a combined company that would be almost three times the size of Sprint in terms of wireless revenue and would entrench AT&T’s and Verizon’s duopoly control over the wireless market. The wireless industry moving forward would be dominated overwhelmingly by two vertically integrated companies with unprecedented control over the U.S. wireless post-paid market, as well as the availability and price of key inputs, such as backhaul and access needed by other wireless companies to compete.

[Read more →]

There’s this interesting article out of Taiwan today detailing an unorthodox use for submarine fiber, though I think they got the terminology wrong.  At least, I don’t think one can prevent earthquakes with optical fiber, not even with the latest equipment!  Early warning of earthquakes and tsunami though, that makes sense and it appears to be what they are doing. [Read more →]

Upstart intercity financial network operator Spread Networks (news) has taken out the hedge clippers again, cutting another millisecond off of its low latency wavelength offering between the New York and Chicago metro areas.  The new SLA’d number is 14.75ms, down from the 15.75ms they have been touting over the last six months, with measured performance of 14.6ms.  The new number applies to all four [Read more →]

Several more items from across the Atlantic to start the week:

European network operator Interoute added another notch to its belt, winning a deal to enhance the VPN network of EuroSport. The pan-european TV channel will see its 12 site MPLS network expand to 20 sites with better QoS and twice the capacity, all for a similar budget. Can’t argue [Read more →]

As if it weren’t foggy enough in London, Savvis (news, filings) [a subsidiary of CenturyLink (NYSE:CTL, news, filings)] this morning took its cloud services to the whole government sector in the UK with their Government Wide Service platform.  Aimed at what has been called the ‘G-Cloud’, Savvis’s offering is designed to supply a pre-built, accredited platform that eliminates upfront capital costs and reduces deployment time.  The GWS had already been powering the UK Home Office, but they have a second taker already. [Read more →]

Ok, it’s not that bad yet, but MicroSoft just spent money to acquire a pile of IP addresses from the remnants of the Nortel bankruptcy.  Now that ICANN is out of addresses to give out, it is only a matter of time before market forces determine just what one is worth.  MicroSoft paid $7.5M for 666,624 addresses, which means the first volley sets the value at $11.25 each.  But it was opportunistic, surely they didn’t need it?  Interestingly, if such a value becomes a liquidly tradeable item, then the total value of its market is known.  There are 4,294,967,296 IPv4 addresses, so at $11.25 each the entire supply would be worth [Read more →]

In a poll on Monday, I asked whether the FCC and DOJ would approve the AT&T/T-Mobile USA deal.  A majority of readers said yes.  But as one commenter noted, that’s not the only question to ask here.  After all, many of us are a tad cynical when it comes to the goings on in DC.  Now that some of the dust has settled, instead of asking what they will do let’s now ask what they should do: [Read more →]

As it’s Friday, let’s take a bit of a break from the string of technology and corporate progress, and recognize a philanthropic effort from within our own ranks.  On April 18, Global Crossing’s John Legere plans to make his seventh run in the Boston Marathon as part of the Dana-Farber Marathon Challenge Team, which raises money to help fight humanity’s long running battle with cancer.  Proceeds go to [Read more →]

A quick look at recent news across the Atlantic:

euNetworks (news) and MESH GmbH have partnered up to deliver cloud services to the enterprise.  euNetworks obviously brings its metro and intercity fiber to the table, which will add high bandwidth connectivity to MESH’s IaaS platform for both private and hybrid clouds. A strong network is essential to any [Read more →]

GlobeNet, the international arm of the Brazilian giant Oi, has completed its upgrade of its submarine cable systems connecting the Americas.  The extra 200Gbps gives them 560Gbps in all, and positions them for the growing bandwidth demands between the two continents.  They also claim the lowest latency paths between New York and the Brazilian financial center of Sao Paolo, a benefit of the cable route that makes the trip via Bermuda down to [Read more →]

They may not actually have a wholesale LTE network in place yet and the AT&T/T-Mobile deal surely didn’t help its cause much, but LightSquared has been making progress lately nonetheless.  On Monday, Leap Wireless (NASDAQ:LEAP, news, filings) signed on for LTE roaming, and yesterday it was the consumer electronics retailier Best Buy throwing its weight behind their wholesale plan.  Earlier this month, [Read more →]

Phoenix-bound no longer, i/o Data Centers has opened a huge new facility on the east coast.  It is located in the former New York Times plant at Exit 10 off the New Jersey Turnpike in Edison, which spans 830,000 square feet.  That much space would take a long time to build out, but this is i/o’s new modular showcase and the first modules are already ready to go.  They build the modules on demand in Phoenix at their ‘factory’ and shipping them over via tractor trailer.  [Read more →]

You know, I’m getting a bit sick of reading about how the AT&T/T-Mobile deal is going to single-handedly kill Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S, news, filings).  You know, the ones where it sounds as if Verizon doesn’t stoop to buying them by next month then the ground will open up beneath their feet, swallow them whole, and belch out pieces of shredded Clearwire.  Yeah, those.  So I just have to say something. [Read more →]

Western regional operator 360networks is adding some more metro fiber to its diet, courtesy of Zayo Group (news, filings).  The two companies formalized a strategic relationship under which Zayo Fiber Solutions will provide metro dark fiber connectivity, which 360Networks will use to expand its local reach in support of its transport and IP business.  [Read more →]

The content and bandwidth markets in South America have been growing rapidly for some time now, and the region is looming large in the plans for many network operators.  Hence, I was not surprised to see Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) make another move southward with today’s announced agreement with INTERNEXA.  INTERNEXA, besides using more than its quota of capital letters, operates a fiber network 18,000km spanning seven countries with special focus beyond the largest countries of Brazil and Argentina.  INTERNEXA is helping Level 3 expand its CDN to [Read more →]

Lots of news this week to keep up with, so let’s look at a few items:

Western regional operator Integra Telecom took another step toward a fiber-focused future and away from its more traditional CLEC roots with the launch of two Ethernet service offerings.  With both Ethernet Private Line and Ethernet Virtual Private Line products on tap and MEF-certified, I expect we’ll be seeing them hooking up at [Read more →]

I’ve seen a few articles lately looking at who the winners and losers are if the AT&T/T-Mobile comes to fruition, and I’d like to throw in a few more on both sides that nobody’s talking about:

Winners (Other than AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, and Verizon/Vodafone): [Read more →]

Midwestern operator US Signal did more than join the Telx Ethernet Exchange yesterday, they also announced a new expansion that takes them beyond their traditional territory and into the Great Plains.  They have apparently added a new regional loop westward from Green Bay to Minneapolis, then south to Des Moines, and back to their existing turf in Chicago.  Along the way they also added off-ramps in [Read more →]

The news from the flourishing Ethernet segment continues to flow, with three interesting items coming out of CompTel today. [Read more →]

If it weren’t for, umm, other news, Sprint’s alliance with Google Voice might have had a pretty nice impact this morning.  They are letting customers use their Sprint mobile number as their Google Voice number, which adds some nice functionality right off the bat.  They are also preloading Google Voice’s Android app onto the new Nexus S 4G, also announced today.  But it will all be drowned out by the big merger news.  The announcement of the proposed buyout of T-Mobile USA by AT&T has far-reaching implications, but the most immediate of them are neither for AT&T nor Deutsche Telecom, but rather for Sprint. [Read more →]

On Sunday of course, AT&T announced it’s intention to acquire T-Mobile USA.  A fair amount of the commentary on the internet thus far, including my own, expresses doubt whether regulators will let the deal pass.  But perhaps that is wishful thinking on the part of pundits hoping for a real fight to cover where the evil mega-corporations actually lose?  Have your say, vote here: [Read more →]