Archive for June, 2010
DukeNet Communications, the wholesale telecom arm of Charlotte, N.C.-based utility company Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK), has paved a new growth path by establishing a joint venture with Alinda Capital Partners LLC. Under the terms of the agreement, Alinda affiliate will acquire a 50 percent stake in DukeNet for $137 million while Duke Energy will own [...]
With only three days until Frontier (NYSE: FTR) officially takes over Verizon’s (NYSE: VZ) rural lines in 14 states, Fitch Ratings has upgraded the service provider’s rating. Fitch said it upgraded Frontier’s rating to BB+, the brink of investment-grade territory, because the deal enhances the service provider’s size and cash flow. While Fitch cautioned that [...]
GTA TeleGuam may be aggressively rolling out Fiber to the Home (FTTH)-based networks in both its Greenfield and Brownfield markets, but it’s not turning its back on good old copper. Already offering ADSL2+-based data service with 7 Mbps as the top speed, GTA TeleGuam plans to start testing VDSL2 for its Spyder Internet service. Following [...]
Like many people, we spent a good chunk of time this week playing with an iPhone 4, and specifically with Apple FaceTime — given that poor AT&T coverage meant we were unable to make calls from the area we were in — about an hour outside of New York City. The video calling feature, which [...]
Satellite and telcoTV providers have long been annoyed with the fact that some cable companies withhold access to cable-company owned regional sports channels. In New York, Cablevision withholds access to the channel from competitors like U-Verse, Dish and FiOSTV in order to prevent sports fans from migrating. In Philadelphia, Comcast does the same thing with [...]
Sure, ISPs do a few things well. Certainly most of them are good at running networks. They know how to use Twitter. They’re very good at charging consumers new and strange fees. But Wired News argues that there’s one thing you don’t want your ISP to do: innovate. Why? Well, usually it’s because they can’t, [...]
Just as U.S. Congressional leaders spar with the FCC over its net neutrality proposal, the UK’s telecom regulator is also considering similar regulations for its country’s broadband providers. Similar to the fight that’s been waged between the FCC and U.S.-based incumbent telephone and cable operators, Ofcom believes that the network controls that the likes of [...]
Verizon is pulling out all the stops lately to prove the viability of FiOS. Following its recent move to end long-term service contracts, Verizon has completed its second trial of XG-PON where it connected a FiOS customer location with 10 Gbps/2.5 Gbps connection. Conducted in Taunton, Mass. over a Motorola XG-PON system, the test equipped [...]
PC Magazine has unveiled the latest data on broadband ISPs collected by their surfspeed application, which, unlike most speed tests measures the browsing speed of an ISP connection. When the application first launched you’ll recall many of you took issue with PC Mag’s data and their methodology, which they’ve since claim has improved and includes [...]
After deploying 100 Gbps optical technology on its optical core transmission networks in Europe, Verizon (NYSE:VZ) now wants to see how 100 GigE could fit into its Metro Ethernet network. Verizon did not have to look far to conduct this field trial. Instead of installing new gear, the carrier simply leveraged the Alcatel-Lucent’s 7450 ESS–the same [...]