Telecom Ramblings

Verizon (NYSE:VZ, news, filings) is planning to go over the top in a big way with a direct challenge to both Netflix and Amazon. They announced today a partnership with Coinstar’s Redbox aimed at bringing streaming video to consumers. And not just in their own territory but nationwide, which means they’ll be doing it over … [visit site to read more]

Hybrid RLEC/CLEC Consolidated Communications (NASDAQ:CNSL, news, filings) said today that it is making a major M&A move by purchasing SureWest Communications (NASDAQ:SURW, news, filings). SureWest operates last mile networks for both residential and business customers in Kansas City and Sacramento, while Consolidated Communications operates in … [visit site to read more]

As longtime readers know, I have spent some effort over the years modeling the results of Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings), but haven’t tried to quantify much on the subject since the Global Crossing deal was concluded. The company reports its Q4 results on Wednesday morning, and there are so many moving parts that it is hard to predict just what they will say.  But many eyes will be on the company this week, so I’ll give it a go anyway. … [visit site to read more]

This article was authored by Tony Poulos, and was originally posted on telecomasia.net.

Google sent me an email last week. It read: … [visit site to read more]

We now have a counter-example to the thesis of carrier spending pullbacks in 2012. Infinera (NASDAQ:INFN, news, filings) easily bested analyst projections for the fourth quarter, despite warning in November of the impact of flooding in Thailand on its supply chain and despite the dismal winter some other vendors have seen (e.g. Juniper, Acme Packet).  Here is a quick table putting the company’s fourth quarter in some context: … [visit site to read more]

News is a bit light for a Wednesday, so here’s some more catchup — this time from the vendors: … [visit site to read more]

We hadn’t heard as much recently from the still young world of telepresence, but this week has seen two substantial tie-ups already – each with a different flavor. … [visit site to read more]

Happy Groundhog Day!  Plenty of interesting news to look at from the independent fiber operators this week already: … [visit site to read more]

Zayo Group (news, filings) has been a pioneer in the fiber-to-the-tower space for some time now, and today they gave a status update on just how big that buildout has become.  … [visit site to read more]

LightSquared (news) won reprieves in the last two days from both the FCC and its hopeful wholesale customer Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S, news, filings). The big day had been yesterday, until the FCC decided to put things off a bit further by asking for public comment on LightSquared’s recent … [visit site to read more]

Let’s catch up a bit with news in the data center space: … [visit site to read more]

Border crossing operator Transtelco (news) has further expanded its fiber network in central and southern Texas.  They have spent the last six months deploying the route from Dallas south to Austin, San Antonio, then through Laredo and down to McAllen. … [visit site to read more]

Houston’s Phonoscope has picked gear from Ciena (NASDAQ:CIEN, news, filings) to power the next generation of its metro network.  Ciena’s gear will let them offer 40G and 100G services across their footprint.  One of the first customers to benefit will apparently be a national wireless company that needs 10G backhaul links from LTE cell sites in the city.  I’m guessing that would be … [visit site to read more]

Remember back in November when Nokia Siemens Networks announced its 23% headcount haircut of 17,000? Well, apparently they weren’t kidding — especially if you happen to be in Germany. A Bloomberg report today says that the company will be laying off … [visit site to read more]

The research out fit Ovum has a report out saying that growth is going to be slowing down for the telecommunications sector as a whole. In 2011 capex and revenues grew at a nice clip of 12% and 7%, respectively, a solid bounceback. However, Ovum says that the overall trend for 2010-2017 will be more like … [visit site to read more]

A few items from overseas to start the week:

Russia’s Rostelecom made an M&A move last week, gaining regulatory approval to purchase Siberian provider Enter.  Enter provides access to 22K subscribers in Bernaul, Novokuznetsk, and Tyumen, which for those too lazy to load wikipedia each have a half million or a bit more in population. Hmmm, … [visit site to read more]

Martin Geddes put out a screed on Friday that is well worth a read, detailing his view of the impending doom of the telecommunications business as it is today. It makes for depressing reading, but its principle point is that the dollars generated by voice and messaging are going away and the industry simply has … [visit site to read more]

Two more job openings were posted to the  Telecom Ramblings Jobs Board this week.  I have plans to change the jobs board over from the current limited, hosted system to something a bit more extensive, hopefully for next month.  This week’s  job postings are from Zayo Group (news, filings) and Sidera Networks (news), both of whom seem to be hiring steadily of late. … [visit site to read more]

Channel Partners Online has a nice report on what XO has been up to lately, as the company discussed with a group of agents yesterday.  Apparently, they’ve got a three year plan aimed at radically transforming the company’s revenue profile. … [visit site to read more]

A quick roundup of items worth a quick look before you take off for the weekend: … [visit site to read more]