Telecom Ramblings

Level 3 Expands Metro Presence in Dublin

Rob Powell — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:54:32 +0000

Level 3 Communications (NASDAQ:LVLT - chart, news) announced today that it has added depth to its metro presence in Dublin, Ireland. After being largely bypassed by bandwidth for many years, the connectivity business in Dublin has been surging mightily over the past several years as the business environment has been highly favorable to hi-tech companies for a while now. Dublin is not a place where Level 3 has … [visit site to read more]

AboveNet Expands Into Miami

Rob Powell — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:42:52 +0000

Metro fiber operator Abovenet (NYSE:ABVT - chart, news) has added its first new market since the dot com bubble, with an expansion into Miami. The company has always focused only on the very largest bandwidth markets and Miami was the biggest gap in that coverage, so this was a natural move. In addition to having many high bandwidth enterprises in the financial, healthcare, and media sectors, Miami is … [visit site to read more]

Global Crossing Tosses Hat Into Telepresence Ring

Rob Powell — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:13:30 +0000

Global Crossing (NASDAQ:GLBC - chart, news) has taken the plunge and launched an immersive telepresence product. in partnership with Teliris. Global Crossing has long had an extensive portfolio of conferencing and collaboration products, which it uses in catering to its multinational customer base. Hence this move seems to follow naturally, given the ongoing transition of telepresence to the mainstream. … [visit site to read more]

Equinix Rolls Past

Rob Powell — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:48:14 +0000

Recession, recovery, whatever, it doesn’t seem to matter much when Equinix (NASDAQ:EQIX - chart, news) reports. This quarter includes two months of data from the Switch & Data acquisition, which boosts the numbers of course. Revenues of $296.1 met guidance and expectations, even beating Paolo’s projections by a hair. Adjusted EBITDA of $132.2M and earnings per share of $0.21 were a bit higher and lower, respectively, than forecast. As for the Switch & Data acquisition, … [visit site to read more]

Akamai Maintains Its Pace, But Perhaps Not Its Acceleration

Rob Powell — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 20:30:42 +0000

Akamai (NASDAQ:AKAM - chart, news) reported its second quarter earnings today after the bell. The 800lb gorilla of the CDN space is following up on very powerful fourth and first quarters, sooner or later the pendulum must swing back right? Well, it didn’t swing back just yet, but this time Akamai only managed to hit the high end of its own guidance. What other providers wouldn’t give to hear themselves in that sentence… Here is a quick table of their second quarter 2010 results in the context of the prior four quarters: … [visit site to read more]

FirstCall, Members Credit Union Select TW Telecom

Rob Powell — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:00:07 +0000

TW Telecom (NASDAQ:TWTC - chart, news) announced two customer contracts today with FirstCall Network and Members Credit Union. As the competitive metro fiber operator with the most lit buildings nationwide, they have long focused on mid-market customers with great success. I’m quite curious to see the company’s Q2 earnings report, in the light of others that have reported thus far. I’m sure there will be another 250 … [visit site to read more]

Pacific Fibre Finds New Partner: Pacnet

Rob Powell — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 11:59:35 +0000

Back in March, a group of investors down in New Zealand started Pacific Fibre, a planned direct link from the country to North America. There was some skepticism that the effort would get off the ground, but they now have some new backing. Pacnet, the regional undersea cable operator, has signed on to the team. … [visit site to read more]

Equinix Earnings Preview For Q2/2010

Paolo Gorgò — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 11:42:32 +0000

This is a guest post by Paolo Gorgò, who blogs over at Nortia Research. Anyone else who might be interested in a guest post may contact the webmaster.

Equinix (NASDAQ:EQIX - chart, news) will report earnings tonight.

This quarter will also include Switch and Data revenues (from May 1^st), and the conference call will represent an interesting update on the integration efforts (and planned future … [visit site to read more]

In Other News: CENX, NTT, Integra, i/o Datacenters

Rob Powell — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 14:19:21 +0000

When the larger competitive carriers report earnings, other news tends to get drowned out around here. That can’t be helped, but we can at least catch up. Here are a few interesting items that have come up in the past few days:

CENX added another puzzle piece to its Carrier Ethernet Exchange business in the form of … [visit site to read more]

Level 3 Reports Q2/2010, Sees CNS Growth Again

Rob Powell — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 13:02:47 +0000

Before the bell today, we had Level 3 Communications (NASDAQ:LVLT - chart, news) issuing its Q2 2010 earnings report, which I offered a preview of yesterday. The company did succeed in delivering on its promise of a return to core network services growth excluding the $7M asset sale last quarter. EBITDA of $209M was roughly what I expected, and was achieved via pretty decent cost controls. However, the market will surely be looking for a bit more than that in the second half. Here is a quick summary of the company’s relevant metrics alongside prior quarters: … [visit site to read more]

Global Crossing’s Q2: Less Wholesale Voice But Otherwise Few Surprises

Rob Powell — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:00:46 +0000

As expected, Global Crossing (NASDAQ:GLBC - chart, news) issued its Q2/2010 earnings report this afternoon after the market closed. The top line revenue number of $630M was lower than the street had it pegged at, but this was due to a $20M reduction in the company’s low margin wholesale voice business after the company raised prices in an effort to improve those margins. Much of the rest of the company’s numbers weren’t too far off from the guesses I made yesterday, though I was a bit too optimistic on GCUK revenues. Here is a quick tabular summary putting the company’s quarter in the context of the past four quarters: … [visit site to read more]

Level 3 Q2/2010 Earnings Preview

Rob Powell — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:44:53 +0000

Tomorrow before the bell Level 3 Communications (NASDAQ:LVLT - chart, news) will report earnings, which means it is time for a quick earnings preview. Analysts expect total revenues of $910M, flat with the prior quarter and a loss of $0.11 per share. As is often the case, I am slightly more optimistic. But when it comes to Level 3, the details are more important than those overall numbers. The key right now for Level 3 is to demonstrate tangible growth in their core network services. They know it, the street knows it, everyone knows it. Here is a quick table of my own projections in the context of the prior few quarters: … [visit site to read more]