Telecom Ramblings

Last week industry bellweather Equinix (NASDAQ:EQIX, news, filings) warned of a revenue shortfall, and the entire sector shivered.  The question was whether or not the datacenter business was about to take a bit of a breather, with growth slowing down, prices softening, etc.  But a report today from Telegeography suggests its all bunk.  [Read more →]

In an effort to raise money to continue its national WiMAX network, clwr is reportedly preparing to sell off some spectrum.  The bidding is already supposedly in its second round and is being managed by Deutsche Bank AG.  The rumored price tag?  Between $2.5B and $5B, which would pay for a whole lot more WiMAX coverage – maybe even all of it if they can get $5B. [Read more →]

Two items from Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) so far this week that are worth a look.

The company’s Vyvx division will now offer uncompressed HD video transport between the major hubs of Los Angeles, Washington DC, and New York City.  That means native, pristine 1.5 and 3.0 Gbps video broadcast feeds for things like the high profile sporting events that Vyvx specializes in.  They also mentioned PacTV [Read more →]

Ok, so it turns out that the $50M raised last week by XO Holdings (news, filings) was just the first volley of its attempt to raise cash at last.  Today the company announced that it intends to raise $200M via a rights offering.  Holders of the company’s common stock will be able to purchase shares of what will be class D preferred stock.  The company intends to use the money to fund its expansion and transformation.  And they’re doing it as promised, without raising any of that evil long term debt – at least not in name.  Unexercised rights will be [Read more →]

Network equipment maker Ciena (NASDAQ:CIEN, news, filings) today moved to raise capital in the form of convertible senior notes.  The company intends to raise $175M, with the usual over-allotment of $35M if the banks overfill their quotas.  The purpose of the funds is listed as general corporate purposes, but includes the possibility of refinancing a portion of their 0.25% converts due 2013 of which there is about $265M outstanding.  That might not happen immediately of course.  Ciena is of course in the midst of a transformation, as it integrates the former Nortel MEN business, and it seems likely to me that [Read more →]

Phoenix based datacenter operator i/o Data Centers went to the credit markets and came back with $200M, made up of two financings.  First there is a $130M long term credit facility via Wells Fargo, supplemented by a $70M secured facility from Caterpillar Financial Services.  I wonder what the significance is that the latter is the financial division of the familiar construction equipment giant.  After all, there is probably some construction in the works since i/o Data Centers surely didn’t raise the money to have it sit around.   [Read more →]

Ethernet Exchange pioneer CENX today announced a significant expansion to its presence across three continents.  New exchanges have been opened in New Jersey, Miami, Hong Kong, and London.  The presence over in Newark complements the exchange over in New York, while Miami provides a gateway to South America.  The London exchange likely comes via the company’s partnership with Interxion in Europe, from which we can likely expect further nodes to come online as well – Frankfurt most likely.  Hong Kong is the company’s first foothold in Asia, a market in which it is currently [Read more →]

Earlier this month, tndm closed its acquisition of Italian based Tinet, transforming itself into an international player in the IP and Ethernet businesses.  They had of course been building out their Ethernet Exchange sites over the summer, but the purchase of Tinet raised the stakes while posing questions about just what this company was to become.  With us today to help us clarify the company’s plans is Surendra Saboo, Neutral Tandem’s Chief Operating Officer: [Read more →]

I suppose I should have waited for the PR, since along with the $50M raised by XO Holdings (news, filings) came actual updated guidance.  But then who expects anyone to raise guidance after hours on a Friday leading into a three day weekend?  That’s when companies prefer to trickle unfavorable news into the market so that cooler heads prevail when the markets open again.  Good news is for Monday or Tuesday mornings.  But anyhow, XO’s updated guidance and the data one can derive from it looks quite good: [Read more →]

We knew that XO Holdings (news, filings) would have to raise some money soon, as their cash levels have dipped well below the $100M mark.  In an SEC filing today, it was revealed that a Carl Icahn affiliated entity called Arnos Corp has extended a credit facility to XO in the amount of $50M at the higher of 6.75% and LIBOR+525, with 0.75% on undrawn portions.  It’s a temporary measure though, as the new financing expires in just one year though, earlier if [Read more →]

With so much activity in the past few weeks, there has only really been time to take one quick look at things and move on.  Time to take a breath and a second glance.

EarthLink – The more I look at their intended purchase of Deltacom, the more it seems unfinished to me.  The synergies with the company’s New Edge business aren’t large enough to make this work out.  EarthLink’s core competency right now is generating [Read more →]

I’ve seen several surveys which ask variations of the knee-jerk question ‘would you buy a ūmi?’, but I think the answer to that is obvious right now.  Cisco doesn’t really expect to sell many of its initial home telepresence offering.  They just hope to bring up the subject so that in a year or two the market is ready and they are its daddy.  Instead, I’d like to ask readers a more forward looking question: [Read more →]

The Pacific cable system Southern Cross has extended its own expected lifetime, according to an article over on Subtel Forum.  The system connects the west coast of the US with Australia and New Zealand by way of Hawaii.  The consortium operating the cable now intends to keep doing so until at least November 2025, tacking on another 5 years past the previous date.  The extra time is due to [Read more →]

Global Crossing’s return to positive free cash flow over the past couple of years has had a lot to do with its improving performance in the North American large enterprise market.  I had the opportunity to have a conversation with Neil Barua, who is Global Crossing’s Managing Director for North America.  He began his tour with the company with Asia Global Crossing back in 2000, and has served in various executive roles since then.  With no further ado, let’s dive into the Q&A: [Read more →]

You knew they had to give it a whirl sometime, didn’t you?  Today Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO, news, filings) rolled out consumer telepresence, which it calls ‘ūmi’ complete with that bar over the u just to make you think you don’t know how it’s really pronounced.  All you need to do is spend $599 on the equipment (video camera, set top box, and a remote control), plus $24.99/month for the cloud service to route calls etc, and you can make video calls from your HDTV over your broadband connection – just like a CEO.  By all accounts, it’s quite an experience.  And it doesn’t have a prayer of catching on.  Yet. [Read more →]

Epson Group, longtime maker of printers and other imaging devices, has implemented an IP VPN from glbc improve its network to and within Latin America.  The new service will provide converged voice, data, and video to Epson’s subsidiaries in Argentina, Brazil, California, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela.  That’s quite a list, I had no idea Epson had that big a presence in the region. [Read more →]

Several items of late that managed to evade my clutches for a while:

XO Holdings (news, filings) reached an impressive milestone yesterday, surpassing one million VoIP customer employee end users.  Amidst all the Icahn-related stories, it is rather easy to forget the things that XO does do well, and VoIP for the SME is certainly one of those.  Now for the second million, eh?  🙂 [Read more →]

Last night, Equinix (NASDAQ:EQIX, news, filings) did something they rarely do, they lowered revenue estimates for the third quarter and the full year. The company says it underestimated churn as well as discounting to secure longer term contract renewals, plus a dip on revenues from the assets acquired from Switch & Data.  In July they had projected revenues to come in at $335-338M, but now see them 2.2% lower at $328-330M, while for the full year they cut back their forecast of $1.225-1.235B to $1.215B.  Equinix’s plans this year have been grand, with buildouts and initiatives all over the globe even while [Read more →]

Merger activity in the fiber sector took a Canadian turn late on Tuesday, as cable and wireless operator Rogers Communications announced that it has agreed to purchase Atria Networks.  Atria operates a deep fiber footprint in the province of Ontario not all that different from similarly dense regional metro operators in the US, with [Read more →]

ACTIV Financial will be extending its presence into Tokyo and Toronto via space and services from Equinix (NASDAQ:EQIX, news, filings) in its TY2 and TR1 International Business Exchanges.  That adds to ACTIV’s current selection of New York, Chicago, London, Frankfurt, and Singapore.  The company specializes in low latency services for high frequency trading, and the opportunities are now expanding geographically. Equinix of course has been working hard to position itself for business like this, and is now seeing benefits beyond the original few cities that were the loci of the low latency frenzy.  [Read more →]

Today internet backbone operator Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) announced a new agreement with Presidio Network Solutions in an effort to enhance its managed service capabilities and add depth to their dedicated internet access and IPVPN offerings.  The arrangement will allow the company to leverage equipment from a selection of hardware vendors including [Read more →]

Yesterday, President Obama named James Crowe, the CEO of Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings), as the Chair of the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC).  NSTAC is designed to provide critical industry-based analyses and advice to the President regarding communications and national security, and to provide recommendations regarding how to assure vital telecommunications links in times of crisis.   [Read more →]

Several items today and over the weekend worth a look:

Today abvt began an initiative targeting law firms.  That seems to stretch their focus on high bandwidth enterprises down a notch in size, though of course there are some big law firms and many of those have multiple offices.  More and more types of business are looking for private, high bandwidth connectivity, which can only be good for fiber operators. [Read more →]