Telecom Ramblings

In the data center sector, there have been several interesting news items this week.

QTS has purchased a huge former semiconductor plant in Richmond VA that it plans to convert into data center space.  The former Qimonda facility cost just $12M, and comes with some 1.2M total square feet of space spread across two fabs, a manufacturing area and office space.  Data Center Knowledge has [Read more →]

I have taken my series of competitive telecom trends and added it to the resources box.  Under that item you will be able to find current versions of the charts of relative revenue growth, EBITDA margin, etc that we have looked at here several times in the past.  Additionally, I have brought my Relative Valuations (i.e. EV/EBITDA multiples) chart into the fold, which was a bit more complicated since the data needed to be recollected for data points to match up.  If you have enjoyed these charts in the pasts, please check them out in their new home and let me know how you like it.  For your viewing pleasure now though, here is the latest Relative Valuations chart:
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q today unveiled its next step into the developing field of Unified Communications (UC).  The new hosted UC platform, called Qwest iQ Hosted Unified Communication Service (iQ HUCS), is designed to help large enterprises integrate voice, e-mail and video for access by whatever device you might be using, whether a landline, smartphone, computer, or perhaps an iPad.   [Read more →]

Optimum Lightpath, the metro fiber arm of Cablevision, has thrown a few more chips into the low latency arena.  Yesterday they introduced an optical transport service aimed at the financial and other verticals capable of supporting both high bandwidth and low latency.  This follows closely on the heels of their 40G offerings announced in February.  The new service is available on “pre-equipped and pre-conditioned routes” across their footprint and features a [Read more →]

The FCC has been flexing its muscles since the Obama administration begin, from stimulus packages to network neutrality rules and on to the national broadband plan.  But today in federal court, they got spanked by the judge as Comcast was vindicated – legally at least.  The issue was whether or not the FCC under Kevin Martin had the authority punish Comcast for meddling with traffic on its network, specifically BitTorrent traffic.  The court said [Read more →]

It must be nice to parcel out your capex budget in the billions.  Today AT&T (NYSE:T, news, filings) said it will spend some $1B in 2010 on increasing its network capabilities and services for the enterprise market.  That means everything from the SME to the multinational corporations.  It’s not a new expenditure; what AT&T is doing is simply detailing what it intends to do with this slice of its previously projected capex budget.  And what a list it is! [Read more →]

Datacenter and managed hosting provider Savvis (news, filings) [a subsidiary of CenturyLink (NYSE:CTL, news, filings)] has signed a three year managed services contract with All Nippon Airways.  Specifically, the Japanese airline will be leveraging their managed hosting offerings to support its web of 70 websites, both internal and external, all served from the company’s Tokyo data center, which they had recently expanded.  Savvis is looking to rebound in 2010, and an aggressive strategy in [Read more →]

Following up on this morning’s thoughts on the iPad and the potential for a material change in overall traffic growth rates, let’s run a quick reader poll.  Assume for the moment that Apple figures out the WiFi signal issues that have cropped up, and that devices like this take off in 2010 and beyond: [Read more →]

Apple’s new toy of course is dominating the headlines right now, although other tablets are surely coming.  What is available now is the WiFi version, whereas the 3G version will be out in a few weeks. While we have heard various thoughts on the potential strain the iPad may put on on wireless networks, might it not be true that the WiFi version will also strain wired networks?  My theory is based on usage patterns of my family and friends, so I’m curious if others might see things the same way. [Read more →]

Today XO Holdings (news, filings) unexpectedly announced an expansion of its broadband wireless offerings in the Washington DC area, including a new hub in Tyson’s Corner.  I say ‘unexpectedly’ because since last summer when XO reabsorbed Nextlink into the rest of its business, we haven’t heard a peep about it.  The implication was that Nextlink had served its purpose, which was to satisfy usage requirements in order to renew the spectrum licenses, and was being de-emphasized.  However, apparently Nextlink still [Read more →]

When it first started this project, many thought Google didn’t really mean it or that their efforts would be absorbed into a larger consortium.  In the end though, it turned out they were quite serious, and their efforts came to fruition yesterday when the Unity cable went live.  Built by TE Subcom and NEC, it stretches 9620km from Chikura Japan to Los Angeles, Palo Alto, and San Jose.  It consists of five fiber pairs, each of which is designed for 960Gbps for 4.8Tbps in all – at least with today’s technology. [Read more →]

A few news bites:

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO, news, filings) announced today that NTT America will be deploying its ASR9000 as part of its nextgen IP network.  NTT America needed a router that could scale to massive capacities, offers carrier-grade IPv6 capabilities, and environmentally friendly power requirements, and Cisco’s gear fit the bill.  NTT is making lots of plans for its nextgen backbone, and is amongst the more vocal carriers looking for an active 100G [Read more →]

Swedish telecommunications giant Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC, news, filings) is sponsoring website promoting discussion on how communications will change our world over the next decade.  The 2020 Shaping Ideas campaign brings together thought leaders from across a wide spectrum, and the videos they have on the site so far are quite interesting.  They’re also quite large, 122Mb if you download the WMV as I did to watch one since I am currently in the far east.  So if nothing else it’s a good way to burn some bandwidth and thus encourage [Read more →]

Nationwide CLEC XO Holdings (news, filings) finally got around to reporting its fourth quarter earnings this afternoon, with mixed results.  Revenues of $375.8M were down sequentially from $382M in the prior quarter, as strong growth in core broadband services was more than counterbalanced by declines in core integrated voice and legacy TDM services.   However, EBITDA of $43.3M wasn’t bad, maintaining EBITDA margins of 11.5% despite the decline.  And the company reported net income of  [Read more →]

The 2010 M&A season continues to heat up.  Today Covad and Megapath exchanged vows, planning to merge their respective networks and produt offerings.  Platinum Equity took Covad private a couple years ago, and since then the company has been further retooled from a reseller of consumer DSL into a managed services provider targeting the SME and wholesale segments with MPLS, VPN, and Ethernet products.  This merger will take them further along that path by adding additional managed products and deepening the overall footprint.  The combined company will reach some [Read more →]

Several bits of news came across the wires in the past few days in the CDN sector that were worth a look.  First of all, Dan Rayburn reported that both Level 3 and Limelight seem to have peeled off some of the Hulu traffic that has pretty much all belonged to Akamai (NASDAQ:AKAM, news, filings) until now.  As Dan says, in this case it probably isn’t a pricing thing but rather a diversity thing.  As Hulu grows, they naturally will seek the flexibility of having multiple providers, which they can then play off against one another later on when it *is* [Read more →]

GigaOm tracked down a very interesting new development in mobile broadband.  It seems that Harbinger Capital Partners is planning a major LTE Move via SkyTerra and a large assorted pile of satellite and terrestrial spectrum, with additional involvement possible from Terrestar which it also owns a chunk of.  The idea seems to be to build out terrestrial LTE networks in urban areas and serve rural areas with LTE via satellite, with the whole network offered on a wholesale basis.  The FCC seems to be relaxing restrictions on the spectrum usage in exchange for [Read more →]

The first round of stimulus funding went mostly to local communities and smaller regional providers and for projects usually in the tens of millions of dollars.  But the second round is shaping up rather differently, as the larger ILECs arrive with bids an order of magnitude higher.  Last week it was q reversing course and applying for a big chunk.  Today it was the large, mostly rural ILEC Windstream (NYSE:WIN, news, filings) who turned up with their own rather large bid. [Read more →]

Pan-European network operator Interoute announced today that it has extended its network into Istanbul, Turkey.  That’s as far to the southeast as it can go without actually leaving Europe, at which time I’ll have to find another adjective since Pan-European would no longer suffice.  Strategically, Turkey was perhaps the most critical crossroads in the western world for millennia.  But that has yet to translate into [Read more →]

Northeastern regional fiber operator Lightower announced a further expansion of its footprint yesterday.  The company will be adding routes to the north and east of New York City.  In Westchester county they will be entering the White Plains, Purchase, Elmsford, Hawthorne, Briarcliff Manor, and Yonkers markets, amongst others.  And over the border in [Read more →]

Following the AGL deal, it appears that indeed the M&A market for fiber is going to continue heating up.  The latest news comes from Rochester, where northeastern metro operator Fibertech has now quite publicly put itself up for sale.  I had heard whispers that this move was coming, but hadn’t realized plans had advanced this far.  The driver is simply that Fibertech’s largest backer, Nautic (51%), wants to monetize the asset.  Interestingly though I hear that the other backer, Bank of America (49%), does *not* [Read more →]

Competitive service provider XO Holdings (news, filings) has launched 40G services nationwide.  They are now offering both 40G transport links and 40G IP transit links, seeking to better address rising demands for ultra high-bandwidth and low latency network connectivity in the wholesale and large enterprise space.  XO’s intercity backbone consists mainly of fiber IRUs from Level 3, and is lit with Infinera gear.  Since Infinera’s native 40G wavelength products aren’t out yet, [Read more →]

As expected, WiMAX upstart clwr has officially launched its CLEAR 4G in the greater Houston area.  This rollout covers more raw territory than any of the company’s efforts so far, bringing online over 1900 square miles and potentially reaching some 4 million people.  That includes the Lake Jackson area as well as the main regions, the overall map looks like this: [Read more →]