Telecom Ramblings

A group of New Zealand investors are putting together an effort to build another cable in the Pacific, this one connecting the US directly to New Zealand and Australia, similar to the current Southern Cross cable.  New Zealand is preparing a high speed domestic fiber network effort, and a big part of that is having enough diverse international connectivity to feed it.  However their geographical position often limits their connectivity options unless they take the problem on themselves, which is precisely what they are [Read more →]

abvt was one of the better stories in the internet infrastructure sector during the recession of 2009.  Re-emerging just over a year ago into the limelight after almost a decade of oblivion, the company has quickly taken up the mantle of leadership in the metro fiber space with high EBITDA margins, double digit growth rates, and even a 2-1 stock split.  With us today to tell us where the company is headed now is the architect of that comeback:  AboveNet’s President and CEO, Bill LaPerch: [Read more →]

Competitive fiber operator Zayo has had a couple of news items over the last few days.  First, they picked up a contract in Michigan with managed data center provider Online Tech.  They will be providing a diverse fiber path hooking up the company’s data center in Ann Arbor.  The Ann Arbor metro fiber footprint derives from the former KMC assets that Zayo [Read more →]

Metro fiber comeback story abvt reported its Q4 earnings this morning, closing the book on what was one of the few unequivocally positive stories amidst the economic turmoil of 2009.  Revenues, EBITDA, and capex were all inline with guidance and perhaps slightly above analyst expectations.  Earnings per share of $7.96 included a huge non-cash income tax benefit, probably due to advance recognition of NOLs – GAAP can be strange sometimes.  Here is a quick table putting their results in context. [Read more →]

Telecommunications equipment provider Ciena (NASDAQ:CIEN, news, filings) has raised $375M in convertible notes due 2015.  They will be using the proceeds to pay for their acquisition of Nortel’s MEN unit.  The credit markets seem to have looked favorably on the offer, which began at $250M.  The notes priced at an interest rate of 4% and are convertible at $20.38 – a premium of [Read more →]

While I tried to stay out of it, the hype reached stratospheric levels over the last week in the runup to Cisco’s announcement.  What could Cisco possibly have been planning that could “forever change the Internet and its impact on consumers, businesses and government” yet somehow keep it secret this long?  Well, nothing really was going to fit the bill after the media got done speculating.  So what did they have to announce?  Precisely what everyone should have expected them to announce:  absolutely gigantic new [Read more →]

While the news of ABRY’s proposed purchase of RCN Business (NASDAQ:RCNI, news, filings) overshadows all else and led to the canceling of their investor call, the broadband and metro fiber company still reported earnings today.  As always, I look mostly at the RCN Metro segment, which delivers thick pipes to the wholesale bandiwdth and data intensive enterprise segment.   [Read more →]

Several bits of news from the undersea cable front in the last day or two, here’s a quick look.

Globenet and Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE:ALU, news, filings) have completed an upgrade to Globenet’s submarine cables connecting North and South America. Along with increased capacity of 110Gbps on its submarine segments, the landing stations in [Read more →]

Verizon says it is now ready to take the plunge.  In another demonstration run on 1,520km of fiber north of Dallas, the telecommunications giant teamed with Finisar, NEC and Juniper put together the most complete 100Gps trial to date.  Rather than just test a piece at a time, this demo sent video traffic via a 100Gbps interface to Juniper T1600, Finisar 100G CFP optical transceiver modules, and an NEC SpectralWave DWDM system equipped with 100G real-time coherent transponders.  Wow, that was a jargon filled [Read more →]

Ok so I skipped the word ‘significantly’, but still the headline seems like a solid candidate for the ‘Well, duh…’ files to me.  But anyway, Verizon Wireless has been field testing 4G LTE in Boston and Seattle, and has been seeing peak speeds of 30-40Mbps down and 15-20Mbps up.  Those are of course welcome numbers, but nothing particularly surprising.  The key of course will not be peak performance, but the speeds you get under load – more specifically when surrounded by smartphone users. Verizon says that ‘real world’ conditions yielded speeds of [Read more →]

It’s been a busy PR morning for network operators – busy enough to bring on a ’roundup’ post that I more commonly do on weekends.

Orange Business Services, the international services arm of France Telecom (NYSE:FTE, news, filings) announced today it is enabling the unified communications (UC) strategy of NXP Semiconductors BV worldwide.  Some 15,000 employees have been migrated to the Managed Microsoft Office Communications Server (Release 2) service hosted by Orange.  According to NXP, the key features are [Read more →]

Japanese telecommunications giant NTT Communications (NYSE:NTT, news, filings) has been giving its global network services division, Arcstar some focus lately. The company has made another move into Russia with the interconnection of its own IPVPN with those of operator TTK, whose fiber runs along the railroad tracks across those vast distances.  It’s not the first time the two have worked together, having collaborated on the Hokkaido-Sakhalin Cable System a few years ago.  This new move expands the reach of Arcstar’s Global IPVPN services throughout [Read more →]

Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) brought its local markets initiative to northern California.  They will be grouping together the markets of San Francisco, San Jose, Oakland, and Sacramento with a general manager, and will be adding both capacity and staff in the region.  This is the second such initiative on the west coast, the first being up in Seattle last summer. No doubt we will see a southern California initiative at some point as well, however [Read more →]

Competitive broadband provider RCN Business (NASDAQ:RCNI, news, filings) on Friday announced that it has agreed to a buyout offer from private equity firm ABRY Partners.  The price of $15/share represented a 22% premium to the stock price before the announcement, and along with the assumption of debt the total value of the deal is $1.2B.  It’s not a done deal yet, as RCN can still solicit competing offers for another 40 days.  In the meantime, the company has canceled its Q4 earnings call. Whether they get any depends on how prospective buyers view [Read more →]

Hybrid fiber/wireless backhaul network operator ftwr reported Q4 earnings last night.  With all the restructuring activity, it is somewhat difficult to make sense of the company’s numbers right off the bat.  However, the balance sheet now has $50.7M in unrestricted cash and $154.5M in long term debt, much easier to support but at the cost of three times as many shares outstanding.  They have bought themselves time, so where are they operationally? [Read more →]

Network equipment manufacturer Ciena (NASDAQ:CIEN, news, filings) reported its fiscal Q1 results today.  That’s for the three months ending January 31st, which means we get an early glimpse of some early first quarter effects.  Revenues of $175.9M were down slightly from the prior quarter and were below analyst expectations in the 180s.  The company blamed delays in revenue recognition associated with initial deployments for several customers for [Read more →]

Here are a few interesting datapoints that have crossed the wires this week:

Metro fiber specialist American Fiber Systems has been busy out in the Rockies.  On Tuesday they announced the completion of an upgraded intercity ring connecting its four markets in the region:  Las Vegas, Reno, Boise, and Salt Lake City.  The unique ring consists of 18,720 fiber miles in all, and enables the company to offer [Read more →]

Here is a video of the FCC Chairman discussing his national broadband policy and why we need it: [Read more →]

Competitive fiber and data provider TW Telecom (NASDAQ:TWTC, news, filings) announced today that it intends to raise $430M in senior notes due 2018 .  They intend to use the money to refinance their current 9.25% bonds due 2014, of which there is $400M currently outstanding. What’s interesting here is that the debt just became callable at just above 103% of face value on February 15, but they aren’t calling it.  They are tendering for it at 100.4% with another 3% consent payment, and are seeking [Read more →]

Competitive service provider cbey released its Q4 and full year 2009 financials today.  Q4 Revenues of $107.7 were up sequentially but somewhat weaker than expected due to lower ARPU levels of $727, down from $744 in the prior quarter.  However, revenues have never really been the company’s weak spot, and they made up for it with strong Q4 EBITDA of $19M and earnings per share of $0.03, up from $15.3M and -$0.01 in the prior quarter and ahead of expectations.  Churn [Read more →]

IP and data center specialist Internap Network Services (NASDAQ:INAP, news, filings) reported Q4 and full year earnings yesterday after the bell.    Revenues continued to see pressure, falling sequentially from the third quarter but still beating analysts estimates slightly.  However, EBITDA was moved higher to $9M for the quarter, fueled by improving gross margins.  Normalized earnings per share of $0.02 were also better than expected.  Here’s a quick table to put the numbers into the context of the full year: [Read more →]

The federal government’s broadband stimulus awards continue to roll out, albeit slowly.  Following Zayo’s success in Indiana, today it was Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings), itcd, and RCN Business (NASDAQ:RCNI, news, filings) who will be seeing funding for middle mile expansion in rural areas.

Level 3’s stimulus wins today totaled $13.7M, alongside which it will put $4.2M of matching funds.  Level 3’s strategy of offering to crack open the huts along stretches of its network that run through rural communities appears to have seen some success.  That means their awards came in small chunks [Read more →]

According to an S-1 filing with the SEC today, Force10 Networks is finally preparing to take the plunge and go public.  There was speculation for several years prior to the recession that Force10 would go public, but they never did.  Last winter the company bought fellow equipment maker Turin Networks, and has been rather quietly integrating the assets and playing defense for a year while carriers cut back on their network spending.  Now they plan to IPO, which frankly isn’t [Read more →]