Networks

Sep 24, 2019

5G Rollouts Put the Pedal to the Metal

Lots of 5G news this week. Most notably, almost a quarter-billion new LTE connections were added worldwide in Q2 2019, according to 5G Americas.

You can read all about 5G mania below. There are also some worthy headlines about internet speeds, India's telecom battle, and a great interview between Recode's Kara Swisher and Huawei’s chief security officer in the U.S. Andy Purdy. 

Aug 26, 2019

Behind the Headlines: Recent Submarine Network News, Explained

This year has been—and will continue to be—a busy one in the submarine networking industry. Several new submarine cables have already been announced, deployed, or put into service.

Aug 20, 2019

How Do You Become Africa's Largest Telco?

For better or worse, MTN has been unafraid of doing business in locations experiencing war, political turmoil, and disaster.

This strategy has made them one of the biggest telcos in Africa—but it hasn't come without cost. The Wall Street Journal's recent profile earns the top spot on our list of monthly reads.

Jul 25, 2019

Some of the Biggest, Most Interesting Stories in Telecom Are Happening in Africa Right Now

When we look through some of the most interesting telecom stories from the last month, a theme emerges.

There's a lot of submarine cable and data center news coming out of Africa. 

We've selected stories about Facebook's plan to bring cheap internet to Africa, as well as a profile on Equiano, Google's new private subsea cable connecting Portugal and South Africa.

Jul 9, 2019

Building and Managing Security Empowered SD-WAN

The benefits of SD-WAN are apparent: more bandwidth, local breakouts, flexibility, etc. That being said, the larger attack surface makes it vital for security to be at the forefront of any modern deployment.

Jul 1, 2019

Will New Satellites End the Dominance of Submarine Cables?

There’s been a lot in the press recently about new low-orbit satellites. Rumors abound about content providers wanting to move their internet traffic off of the ocean floor and into space.

Jun 27, 2019

Going Where No Internet Has Gone Before

When you look to the night sky, do you think of the potential that satellites have to bring connectivity to geographies underserved by submarine cables? No?

Well maybe you will after reading one our recommended reads from PTC. This post unpacks the distribution of internet access across the world's population. There are still plenty of places that submarine cables don't reach, which makes satellites an appealing option for filling the void.

Jun 25, 2019

Will Bandwidth Prices Eventually be the Same on All Routes?

I call this one the price parity myth—the notion that one day bandwidth prices will be the same on all routes.

Jun 20, 2019

Are Content Providers The Biggest Investors in New Submarine Cables?

We’ve written quite a bit about content provider’s investments in new cables. And we’ve seen headlines about Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Facebook’s big new investments. So does that mean that content providers are the largest investors in new submarine cables?

Jun 19, 2019

Data Center Interconnect Goes Undersea: Addressing Voracious Submarine Bandwidth Growth

The majority of new submarine capacity upgrades and cable deployments are designed to address the voracious growth in data flowing between large data centers via submerged information superhighways.

There is simply no networking technology that comes close to optical networks in terms of scalability, reliability, and economies of scale. This means, that as an industry, we must continue to rapidly innovate upon submarine optical networking technology today, and well into the future.