A slew of news out this morning ranging from AT&T’s $1 billion expansion in its network, to Cisco’s update of its unified computing system highlights the need to invest in networking — both inside the data center and on the long haul fibers between them.
Mitsuyoshi Okamoto, president of NTT SMC, and Ooyala CEO Jay Fulcher
In the coming weeks, NTT Smartconnect will begin selling a localized version of Ooyala’s Backlot white-label video distribution platform to its clients. The agreement builds on a memorandum of understanding that the companies signed in May 2009 to work together on interactive video advertising solutions and “explore possibilities for collaboration between the two enterprises.” Apparently that collaboration extends to a reseller partnership between the companies.
Japan’s NTT (s ntt) said yesterday that it would spend more than 10 billion yen ($105 million) to buy the owner of a 21,000-kilometer undersea cable delivering web traffic between the U.S. and Japan. NTT said it would buy Pacific Crossing Ltd., which operates the undersea cable offering 3.2 terabits per second of capacity. NTT’s decision to buy the cable can be read as an attempt to control more of the vital infrastructure connecting the web around the world. Earlier this month, we reported on the boom in undersea cable construction in response to a 64 percent surge in international bandwidth use last year. Asia is a huge and growing broadband market, but there is a lot of capacity there. Read More about Japan’s NTT Snaps Up Undersea Cable Co.
[qi:046] Level 3 (s LVLT) stock might be trading below a buck, and its future might be cloudy, but the company has to be thrilled with this news from Renesys, an Internet monitoring company, which claims it’s the largest IP network in the world, ahead of Sprint (s S), which apparently just can’t get a break, even though they are growing.
Renesys explains that the rise of Level 3 has been driven by its overseas growth, especially in Asia. Global Crossing saw similar gains because of growth in Asia, where it has started to offer transit services to more carriers. As we have noted previously, the growth in traffic in Asia is driven by the surge in the economic activity in the region, along with increased demand for faster broadband pipes. Here are the top five by rank: Read More about Level 3 Has the Largest IP Network
AT&T, in conjunction with some 10-15 incumbent telecom carriers, is plotting to launch a Skype competitor, according to a research report issued this morning by ThinkEquity analyst Anton Wahlman. He argues that big shifts in the telecom landscape are forcing the carriers to think along these lines: Voice has become a losing proposition, and they’re losing fixed-line customers at an alarming rate. Continue Reading
MySpace and NBC Join Forces for Campaign Coverage; Decision ’08 to provide daily videos from NBC and MSNBC, as well as user-generated content. (Reuters)
MediaScrape Raises $3.16 Million; Montreal-based news video aggregator, syndicator and translator gets money from undisclosed investors. (paidContent)
BayTSP and NTT Partner for Copyright Tracking; NTT’s content recognition technology makes its U.S. debut through BayTSP’s UGC web monitoring service. (release)
Rivals Ignore ABC Debate Clip Rules; ABC had said only one 30-second clip from the controversial debate was allowed to be repurposed in coverage; others paid it no mind. (The New York Times)
Blu-Ray Won Battle, but HD War has Just Begun; technology faces challenges in upconverting standard DVD players and a low install base outside the PS3. (ABI Research)
Adap.tv Launches Video Ad Platform; OneSource promises to let publishers manage ad campaigns, all ad sources and formats. (release)
Groundlings to Go Online; famous sketch-comedy group to create 50 digital shorts that Sony will distribute. (Variety)
DSL-based broadband service providers may have started to catch up with cable companies in pure subscriber count terms, but when it comes to speeds, U.S. DSL companies are lagging behind not only the cable companies, but their peers around the world.
Between the second and third quarters of this year, the average DSL connection speed in the U.S. (and Canada) increased a mere 0.17 percent, according to research firm Point Topic, bringing the average download speed to just 2.971 megabits per second.
In comparison, the speeds in South & East Asia went up 132 percent to 3.582 Mbps, while Asia Pacific saw speeds increase 38.79 percent to 14.989 Mbps. Speeds in Western Europe gained by 6.22 percent to 5.552 Mbps, and in Eastern Europe, speeds are up 6.59 percent to 2.443 Mbps. In Latin America, speeds rose 29.06 percent to 1.652 Mbps, while the Middle East & Africa saw speeds dip 0.71 percent, to 1.404 Mbps. The carriers that gave DSL speeds a nudge include Korea Telecom, NTT, China Telecom, Fast Web, Telecom Argentina, and Telefonica and its affiliates.
