Telecom Ramblings

It seemed like the winter was dominated by LTE news and plans, while WiMAX took a back seat.  But today with the first week of Spring, clwr and Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S, news, filings) struck back with a one two punch that was very powerful even if it was largely anticipated.  Clearwire added a bundle of new major cities that will see WiMAX deployments this year:  Los Angeles, Miami, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Salt Lake City.  Next in line of course is [Read more →]

Possibly the most surprising CDN acquisition last year was the purchase of Velocix by Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:ALU, news, filings).  Just what exactly the telecommunications equipment giant intended to do in the CDN space was unclear.  As interesting as content delivery is right now, revenue-wise the whole sector can fit in their back pocket and still leave room for a cell phone.  Today though, Alcatel-Lucent announced its Multimedia Solutions initiative, the largest part of which was of course built on Velocix. [Read more →]

I was going to wait to update my series of comparative metrics (revenue growth trends, EBITDA margin, Capex, etc) this until XO Holdings (news, filings) reported earnings, but they’re later than usual and there seems to be no ETA.  When they do report, I will try to update the graphics.  I do realize that Murphy’s Law says it will be 10 minutes after I post this…  So, now that everyone else has reported, let’s take a look at relative revenue trends across the sector over the past 8 quarters.  The companies (or parts of companies) all offer various combinations of voice, data, and raw bandwidth in competition with the ILECs primarily to the US wholesale and enterprise markets.  As a rule, they have little or no consumer focus.  With no further ado: [Read more →]

For Infinera (NASDAQ:INFN, news, filings), OFC/NFOEC 2010 is always one of the bigger events of the year and they can always be counted on to demonstrate their latest progress – though perhaps not necessarily to drive an 18 wheeler onto the show floor in the process.  This time, unsurprisingly, they were focused strongly on 100 Gigabit Ethernet, and they showed a 100 GigE transmission over their current DTN gear using a prototype 100 GigE tributary interface module.  It should be noted of course that Infinera’s 100G is a different beast [Read more →]

RCN Metro, a division of RCN Business (NASDAQ:RCNI, news, filings), is extending its footprint into Canada.  The northeastern metro fiber operator will enter the Toronto market, with a basket of low latency Ethernet services formally scheduled to be available for sale at the end of May.    Looming large of course is the current buyout offer for the parent company RCN by ABRY, and any competing offers – but RCN Metro has continued about its business with both these Canadian plans and the success of [Read more →]

Following friday’s completion of the Nortel MEN acquisition, Ciena (NASDAQ:CIEN, news, filings) has wasted no time.  Today they offered some detail on their future plans for the combined product portfolio, a key focus of which will be converged optical Ethernet.  There will be five product categories:   [Read more →]

Over on the government’s Broadband USA site, there is this PDF with the various awards granted or pending.  Inside it is a collection of the maps that went with each application for funding.  As long time readers know, I am a sucker for maps – so I couldn’t resist collecting a few in a more accessible format than a 65 page government generated PDF – some covered here earlier and some not.   You can click on each thumbnail for a larger, readable map. [Read more →]

Colocation and interconnection provider Telx has filed an S-1 with the SEC in preparation for an IPO in which it hopes to raise as much as $100M.  Telx operates 15 network neutral data centers in 9 Tier 1 markets, and they have a particular focus on interconnection services with some 28,272 in service at the end of 2009.  They will use the funds, unsurprisingly, to accelerate the growth of their business.  That probably means organically, but they did leave open the possibility of M&A.   [Read more →]

Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) announced today that it will be providing connectivity for PT Telkom Indonesia International (TII).  Specifically, they will be providing high speed IP services in their Los Angeles gateway, plus wavelengths to backhaul it all from there to the landing station of the Asia America Gateway cable (AAG).  TII is not exactly a household name in the US, but it is the incumbent provider in a country with 230 [Read more →]

Telecommunications equipment giant Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:ALU, news, filings) took the wrappings off its next generation mobile packet core product offerings.  The announcement and much of the media coverage are filled with a very thick alphabet soup of technologies and standards and other acronyms regarding its capabilities that I’m just beginning to fully decipher, but Light Reading has one of the better articles.  Basically, the solution is built around its 7750 service router, with a plethora of other new boxes designed to handle the intricacies of mobile traffic and survive the coming wave.  One of the key features is [Read more →]

Here’s another quick overview of some of the news this week that I didn’t manage to write a full article about:

Hibernia Atlantic won some additional business with Italian based Tinet.  The IP and Ethernet backbone operator will be purchasing multiple 10G transatlantic wavelengths.  Specifically they will be buying bigger pipes in and out of [Read more →]

Competitive service provider TW Telecom (NASDAQ:TWTC, news, filings) took further financial steps today in the refinancing activity they announced earlier this month.  First, they have closed their sale of $430M of 8% senior notes due 2018. And second, the early results of the tender offer are in, with $366.5M being tendered and the company receiving consents from 91.6% of holders for the covenant changes.  Amongst those covenant changes was a shortening of [Read more →]

It’s time for a quick poll:

[poll id=”35″]

The wireline division of Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S, news, filings) has certainly had a rough spell lately.  Last week it emerged that its long time VoIP customer TW Cable was bringing the business in house, and this week its smaller brethren Mediacom followed suit.  Both had outsourced much of the infrastructure for their cable VoIP offerings to Sprint since the beginning of the VoIP surge back in 2003-2004.  Is this specific to Sprint or is it a trend across the sector?   [Read more →]

Ethernet seems to be the twinkle in every carrier’s eye at the moment.  Today Level 3 announced a significant expansion to its switched Ethernet footprint.  They will be increasing the number of switches in their network by 400%, i.e. where there used to be one there will soon be 5.  The increased Ethernet footprint will eliminate the need for backhaul of switched metro Ethernet applications and set the stage for [Read more →]

Today is the big day!  The FCC will formally unveil its National Broadband Plan and lead us all into bandwidth nirvana as we catch up to the rest of the world!  *Sigh* Ok, perhaps I waxed a bit too sarcastic there, but I just can’t seem to get excited.  It’s not that it isn’t important – because it is.  And it’s not that they’re doing it all wrong – I’m agnostic on that.  No, it’s the little engineer sitting on my shoulder snickering in my ear at the follies of bureaucracy, not the least of which being [Read more →]

In further news coinciding with the beginning of CompTel, CENX and Covad offered updates on their Ethernet offerings.

CENX announced that its Carrier Ethernet exchange has surpassed 5 accessible million locations, and they expect that number to double by the end of the second quarter.  That’s an interesting metric that I’m sure we will be hearing more about.  It’s not the size of CENX’s exchange so much as the size of the combined [Read more →]

Maryland-based BroadSoft has filed an S-1 with the SEC in preparation for a long awaited IPO.  While the price and number of shares are obviously undetermined at this stage, they hope to raise some $103M in all.  Goldman Sachs and Jefferies will be handling the book running for the offering.  BroadSoft has long been near the top of my personal list of companies that ought to be public, I suspect they would have a couple years ago when the IPO market went cold.  The company’s software underlies [Read more →]

Lots of announcements today as CompTel opens for business, here’s a quick survey:

TelX has linked up with Global Telecom and Technology (GTT)’s GigE backbone. The new connectivity will be available to customers across TelX’s 8 city colocation footprint. These two have worked [Read more →]

Competitive metro fiber operator abvt today launched a low latency transatlantic product aimed at the financial sectors.  They are offering end to end connectivity between Slough, The City and Docklands in London, and various locations in Manhattan plus key facilities in Newark, Weehawken, Secaucus, Carteret, and Clifton.  Each of those contains [Read more →]

I have heard several rumors since the start of 2010 that AGL Networks has been looking for a suitor, all of which have come from reliable sources.  The latest, however, is that a buyer has stepped forth and we shall hear soon.  One source says that it is none other than Zayo that is doing the buying, which would not surprise me much at all – things have been far too quiet over there lately.  Of course, there are perhaps a half dozen metro fiber operators out there for whom AGL’s footprint might [Read more →]

International network operator glbc has unveiled plans to upgrade its MAC, PAC, and SAC submarine cable systems.  These systems work together to link the Caribbean, Central America, and South America to both the east and west coasts of North America and the new capacity will come online during Q2 and Q3.  Global Crossing isn’t the only increasing capacity to and from Latin America, just a few days ago Globenet announced the completion of an upgrade of its own.  However, I was somewhat surprised to see this upgrade, considering [Read more →]

Over the past few days, it has emerged in stages that the wireline division of Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S, news, filings) has lost its VoIP outsourcing contract with Time Warner Cable.  Sanford & Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett broke the story with a reasearch note, and apparently TW Cable has confirmed its new plans to bring the business in-house over the next four years.  Moffett’s calculations apparently peg the outsourcing deal at $10-11 per VoIP subscriber, and that some $250M or 25% of Sprint wireline’s EBITDA is at stake.  I can’t judge the accuracy of those numbers, but if he’s even [Read more →]