Telecom Ramblings

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Sharif Fotouh, Managing Director, Compass EdgePoint

If there is a song whose title characterizes the current state of the edge data center market, it would be The Temptations’ “Ball of Confusion.” (I’m a Motown guy.) Although you can’t swing a dead cat nowadays without reading or hearing someone describing “the edge” as being as close to data center nirvana as we’re going to get, right now it seems like we’re in a bit of “you go first” mode of adoption. Naturally, some may find this state of affairs a bit disconcerting, but if you think about it, this slow rate of adoption may, at least in part, be our fault. [Read more →]

Zayo has been pretty quiet lately as we all wait for the deal by Digital Colony and EQT to close and take them private. But this week they announced a new project on the organic front: another longhaul buildout. [Read more →]

A few interesting items from the start of this week, focusing in on metro and the edge: [Read more →]

Here’s a quick rundown of news from global network providers from over the break and the start of the week: [Read more →]

Latin America has long been an intriguing market for infrastructure providers, with plenty of opportunity tempered by a different and still-developing ecosystem of providers, regulators, and the like.  This year we saw EdgeUno emerge as a new entrant in the data center and cloud computing space, beginning with an acquisition of infrastructure in Colombia and quickly following up with a quick expansion into Argentina, Chile and Brazil.  With us today to talk about EdgeUno’s approach and near-term goals is CEO Mehmet Akcin.  Mehmet spent three years each building network for Microsoft and Yahoo, and recently founded the network atlas site Infrapedia as well. [Read more →]

In a pre-Thanksgiving announcement yesterday, GTT revealed that it is considering a future without fiber. The global cloud networking operator has retained Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs as financial advisors for the potential sale of its infrastructure division. [Read more →]

Some new network deployments worth noting across the industry and around the world: [Read more →]

This has been a pretty heavy month for European fiber M&A, with EQT making moves within its portfolio and Altice’s SFR making its move on Covage yesterday. Now the Dutch fiber operator Eurofiber has joined the party with a suite of acquisitions of its own. [Read more →]

The FTTH market over in Europe may soon be a little less crowded, at least in France. Altice Europe today has announced that today its SFR FTTH subsidiary has signed an exclusivity agreement to acquire its competitor Covage. [Read more →]

Last month, Arcadian Infracom raised funding for a new intercity fiber buildout along some unique routes.  The plan is to connect Denver, Salt Lake City, and Phoenix via routes passing through the Navajo Nation and the surrounding area while adding off-ramps to underserved markets.  When it comes to internet infrastructure, there aren’t many regions in the USA that have been bypassed as thoroughly over the years.  With us today to tell us how Arcadian Infracom plans to make it finally happen is Co-Founder and CEO Dan Davis.  Dan has been in the longhaul fiber business since the 90s, culminating in a 15-year stint at CenturyLink. [Read more →]

Northern Europe will be seeing a significant fiber consolidation event in the coming quarters if EQT gets its way. The infrastructure fund has announced plans to merge two of its holdings: IP-Only and GlobalConnect. [Read more →]

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Hubert Souisa and was originally published on Infrapedia.org

The shape of the Internet is continuously evolving and expanding, just like our vast universe. Large amounts of data are being transported across networks and stored at data centers around the globe. New companies arise, others fall. And, the rise of massive, hyper-scale cloud infrastructures only seems to speed up the expansion of the Internet with companies like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft in the driving seat exploiting the economies of scale to build platforms in a more cost-effective way. [Read more →]

MEF has updated the industry on its progress toward the 3.0 version of its standards. At MEF19 out in Los Angeles this week they issued a flurry of announcements shifting more of their work on SD-WAN and related automation from theory into practice. [Read more →]

Lots of interesting bits of news this week to keep an eye on: [Read more →]

A couple of SD-WAN enhancements, some big supercomputing bandwidth, and a new data center tenant: [Read more →]

For global carriers made interesting announcements late last week that should be noted, with three with new or expanded vendor relationships and one doing balance sheet work: [Read more →]

Peering relationships have kept the internet working smoothly for decades, but given the pace of change in today’s cloud-powered digital economy it should not be surprising that peering is evolving too.  How should it evolve to best keep the iottabytes flowing?  With us today to talk about where peering has been and where it should be going is Peter Cohen, Vice President of Peering, Interconnectivity and Ecosystem Development at QTS.  QTS has been actively advocating for more network access points and Internet diversity nationally with and globally.  [Read more →]

Some interesting vendor consolidation was announced yesterday. Ribbon Communications says it has entered into an agreement to acquire ECI Telecom Group for $460M or so in cash and stock. [Read more →]

This Industry Viewpoint was contributed by Josephine Bernson, Chief Revenue Officer of Great Plains Communications

Telecom providers that serve local community banks would do well to keep in mind the mandate of these smaller financial institutions when it comes to the challenges associated with digital transformation in the face of a gap between easy internet access and adequate broadband connectivity. [Read more →]

African fiber infrastructure is having quite a week. Following quickly on the heels of Liquid Telecom’s completed east-west route across central Africa, Orange has announced plans at AfricaCom to build out some significant fiber of its own in West Africa. [Read more →]

One new partnership, two new PoPs and a metro fiber acquisition: [Read more →]

Packets looking to cross Africa from east to west now have a new option other than going the long way around via subsea cables. Liquid Telecom has unveiled a new terrestrial route crossing the continent through some of the most difficult and politically dicey terrain on the planet. [Read more →]

For those expecting a quick resolution to the ongoing dispute between Windstream (and its creditors) and Uniti Group, yesterday was a bit of a setback. Ok, well I doubt few were expecting a ‘quick resolution’, but hey. The mediation process the two were undergoing has been suspended, as the parties have apparently reached an impasse. [Read more →]