A few weeks ago, I returned to sunny Honolulu for TeleGeography’s annual telecom trends workshop at PTC.
As usual, Brianna Boudreau explored global pricing trends, and Jon Hjembo shared insights from the data center world.
A bit unusual was the name of my segment: Mother Earth, Motherboard. This title was actually inspired by an article written in 1996:
What makes a city a hub? And what makes a hub healthy?
Before we answer these questions, we must acknowledge that the interconnection market is not a homogeneous thing. It's an ecosystem comprised of numerous critically interdependent parts, much like a body or a machine.
In 2024, we saw many telecom headlines in the mainstream media. There were stories on the evening news about submarine cables relating to geopolitics, network outages, and even the potential impact of AI.
At this year’s Pacific Telecommunications Council conference, I thought it would be interesting to take a closer look at how those headlines actually impacted the market in terms of pricing.
Submarine networks enable uninterrupted connectivity among geographically dispersed physical data centers, effectively forming a global data center without walls.
Substantial investments driving the swift growth of AI infrastructure in both existing and new data centers are set to significantly influence data center interconnect (DCI) networks, which are essential for the success of AI applications and use cases.
Research Director Alan Mauldin recently joined Ciena’s Brian Lavallée for a live webinar exploring these technical and strategic drivers transforming the AI landscape.
Ah, São Paulo. A critical market for Latin American connectivity (just ask our Market Connectivity Score), and the perfect location for Capacity LATAM 2025.
Last month, I had the pleasure of speaking at Cairo ICT about colocation and connectivity trends.
I covered global bandwidth first, followed by a rundown on bandwidth in the Middle East and Africa.
Next up, data centers and interconnection hubs, with a discussion on where the hubs are, what makes a hub, and how hubs grow. Finally, I talked about end-user demand, which is very important with the growth of internet and demand.
You can catch a video of this presentation and download my slides below.
Another year, another African Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF) keynote presentation for Senior Research Manager Patrick Christian.
His 2024 African Network Geography Update explored global network trends, as well as African bandwidth trends, interconnection hub trends, and end-user demand. There was a special focus on Kinshasa, where this year’s AfPIF conference was held.
What are the best-connected hubs in Africa? Where are new and planned submarine cables landing? Is intra-African bandwidth gaining traction?
We are now moving from sci-fi to reality with the launch of many AI services that are poised to transform industries and reshape our daily lives.
While data centers are expanding rapidly to support AI requirements, there is less clarity on how AI might impact long-haul network infrastructure, especially submarine cables.
This is exactly what I delved into during my keynote at Submarine Networks World 2024.
Many locations around the world are clamoring to become the next great hub. But before we can identify successful practices to promote digital hubs, we first must decide how to measure that connectivity.
What role do submarine cables play? How about electricity and green power? And government policies ... can those even be quantified?
At Platform Global 2024, TeleGeography VP of Research Tim Stronge took to the stage to tackle these questions.
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