Lightower Fiber Networks has been selected to provide a diverse network solution by the Massachusetts Broadband Institute (MBI), a division of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, as part of its MassBroadband 123 initiative, a strategic network initiative which expands broadband and Internet throughout the state of Massachusetts. The Lightower network build will connect the MassBroadband 123 network to the major Internet connection point in Boston via diverse paths to further ensure network reliability.

The MBI will lease its fiber on two diverse paths of the Lightower network to connect the MassBroadband 123 network to a key Internet Point of Presence located in Boston.  The additional path of the Lightower network will connect with MassBroadband 123, providing redundant and diverse pathways to the major Internet access points in Boston.

MassBroadband 123 is expanding high-speed Internet to over 120 communities in western and north central Massachusetts. This future-proof, fiber-optic backbone will provide the necessary infrastructure to bring innovative broadband technology to residents and businesses in the region as well as support Commonwealth of Massachusetts agencies throughout the western regions.

For more information on Lightower and its all-fiber networking and broadband solutions, please visit www.lightower.com.

This article was originally posted on DSLServiceProviders.org

Bandwidth caps have quickly become the norm among internet service providers, and despite their assurances that such usage restrictions would only affect a few heavy users, it’s no secret that bandwidth can evaporate pretty quickly even with average use.  Video streaming, gaming, and families of users can go through quite a few gig in a relatively short period – short enough to warrant a warning, if not a surcharge, from their ISP.  So it would be useful to know some tips on how to make the most of your allowance. Here are ten ways that you can take smaller bites out of your allotted bytes:

1. Do a Background Check – No, we don’t mean hiring a PI to dig up dirt on the CEO of your ISP. We’re talking about programs or applications that run on your device whenever it’s online. You can monitor for unnecessary drains on your resources by downloading TCP Eye.
2. Pass on the Auto Updates – Many programs will install with user-selectable update options. Use these opportunities to save bandwidth by de-selecting automatic updates. You can get the updates manually later on.
3. Block Ads – Apart from just being annoying, those pop-up ads take up bandwidth. Download ad blocking software so you can make better use of it.
4. Savings in a Flash – Some websites make use of Flash to stream videos automatically when visiting certain pages. Make sure you don’t have Flash set to run automatically. There are also flash ad blocking add-ons available for multiple browsers and platforms.
5. Cache Savings – You can set your browser to cache images, and even select the amount of memory to set aside for the task. This will allow you to retrieve stored web pages from your device’s memory rather than the web, and thereby saving you more bandwidth.
6. External Drive – You definitely need multiple back-ups of your important files in case of a crash, damage to, or theft of, your device. We recommend making use of an external drive source in favor of online storage when bandwidth is a concern.
7. Choose Wisely – Regarding those files that you do choose to backup online, you may want to be more selective about what needs safeguarding and what can simply do with a disk copy.
8. Change Your Resolution  –  Video far and away represents the largest slice of the average internet user’s bandwidth pie. If you can’t do with less video, maybe you can get by with a little less quality in your videos via a lower resolutions setting.
9. Apply Compression – As a First Aid measure for saving bandwidth, this treatment can be a life-saver. Download image optimizing software that allows you to send photos in a compressed format.
10. You’ve Got Mail Issues – Specifically: forwards, attachments, image loading – all of which can add up. Screen your inbox and only open those forwards that you really need to, and only those attachments that aren’t likely to be lolcatz; set your mail client to not load images automatically. You’ll thank us later.

Zayo, in partnership with I-Light, announces that the two companies will host a joint press event on November 3 at the University Conference Center’s Reading Room in Indianapolis, IN. The event, which will be held in conjunction with the I-Light Member Meeting, aims to educate and inform guests and reporters on the state-wide benefits of the high-speed, Ivy Tech fiber build. Construction began in May 2011 to deploy 626 miles of new 96-strand fiber, to connect 63 Indiana university and college campuses to I-Light, including 21 Ivy Tech Community College campuses.

The project was funded under a Federal Stimulus Award to enable access to broadband networks in otherwise underserved markets. The purpose of the build is to connect various Ivy Tech campuses to the nation’s advanced educational and research networks, including Internet2 and the National LambdaRail. In addition to increasing state-wide efficiency for higher education, the build will also generate jobs and local commerce. The construction allows broadband services availability to as many as 80 communities along the fiber path, including 49,000 businesses and thousands of health, public safety, education and government centers. Since breaking ground, over 140 miles of new fiber network have been built with construction work expected to continue through April 2012.

If you are interested in discussing the benefits of this build further, please attend the Press Event on November 3 at the University Conference Place in Indianapolis.  To RSVP, email jsa_Zayo@jaymiescotto.com. For more information on Zayo, visit www.zayo.com.

Zayo announces today its participation in the construction of a new fiber optic network across Western Ohio.  Com Net, Inc. has been awarded $30 million from the Federal Recovery Act Broadband Technology Opportunities Program for their GigE Plus Availability Coalition (GigEPAC) project and Zayo is a sub-recipient of this award. The network connects Toledo, OH to Columbus, OH and covers multiple underserved towns throughout Western Ohio.  In order to effectively implement the project, Com Net established the GigE Plus Availability Coalition consisting of Zayo, OARnet and 33 Broadband Service Providers to deploy broadband to 28 Western Ohio counties.

Once completed, the project will add nearly 366 new miles of fiber to Zayo’s existing Ohio network. Schools, state and local governments, public safety entities, libraries and community support organizations will all have access to network connectivity through this build. The project objectives include encouraging investment in economically distressed counties along the route, enabling local service providers to connect to the GigE Plus project’s open network in order to offer affordable broadband access to community members and providing connectivity to core institutions of the communities.

For more information on Zayo’s fiber network, visit www.zayo.com.

_Sidera Networks, the premier provider of fiber optic-based network solutions, announced that Flexenet has selected its Xtreme ultra-low latency network. Flexenet, Europe’s leader in mission-critical voice trading technology and connectivity solutions for major banks and brokers, joins a list of nearly 250 financial institutions and 30 of the world’s leading financial exchanges on Sidera Networks’ network footprint.

Flexenet is provided with seamless connectivity for high quality, automated trading through Sidera Networks’ Xtreme ultra-low latency network. “When we entered the U.S. market, it was clear that Sidera Networks was the best choice, providing us with direct connectivity and guaranteed latency, and allowing us to deliver the first-class service our customers expect from us” stated Chris Rose, CEO of Flexenet. Sidera Networks is also able to provide direct access to key New York-based financial exchanges and rapidly provision circuits to Flexenet’s Manhattan facility.

For more information email jsa_sidera@jaymiescotto.com or visit www.sidera.net.

With a keynote by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, ISOC’s INET New York event was a day filled with discussion on current issues and the latest trends for the Internet. Themes of control, access and collaboration carried consistently through the course of the day’s panels. Hunter Newby, CEO of Allied Fiber was featured on the morning panel on the future of the Internet. This panel shared their thoughts on the impact each layer of the OSI stack has on innovation and where future trends are heading. In addition to Hunter, the panel included Link Hoewing, VP of Internet & Technology Policy at Verizon,
 Chris Libertelli, Senior Director, Government and Regulatory Affairs, for Skype and 
Nick Gall, Vice President of Gartner Research.

INET was just the beginning of the events Allied Fiber will be present at during the course of June. Allied Fiber will also be at SIFMA in New York held June 14-16. Additionally, Allied Fiber will be at Telecom Exchange on June 29 at Cipriani Wall Street, New York.

To meet with Allied Fiber at one of these events, email jsa_allied@jaymiescotto.com. For more information on Allied Fiber, visit www.alliedfiber.com.

Broadband Properties recently held its Summit event in Dallas, TX. Hunter Newby, CEO of Allied Fiber spoke at the Summit and Allied Fiber was also featured as the cover story in the Broadband Properties Magazine’s event edition.  The article showcased Allied Fiber’s new network design and focused on the impact the system will have on interconnecting communities and areas that previously had difficulty gaining broadband access.

Throughout the article, Allied Fiber’s history and future were explored as well as the way in which this new dark fiber system will have an effect on the US and the economy. Hunter provided valuable insight into the future of backhaul connectivity and statistics on the amount of communities that sit within a mile of Phase I of Allied Fiber’s system. Due to their location along the route, these communities will now be able to construct local broadband builds.

In addition to being featured in the article, Allied Fiber was also included as part of the Fiber Optic History exhibit as a “Making History Today” company. For the complete article, click here. For more information on Allied Fiber, visit www.alliedfiber.com.

Allied Fiber’s CEO, Hunter Newby, will speak at next week’s Broadband Properties Summit event being held April 26-28 in Dallas, TX. Hunter is speaking on the Economic Development program on Thursday, April 28. This panel will include discussions on creative tax and other incentives, removal of barriers to entry, strengthening America’s educational system, and meeting the needs of vulnerable populations. Panelists in this session will also cover what their companies can contribute to achieving America’s economic development goals.

In addition to the economic development program, the summit will also will feature legal and regulatory tracks and a rural telecommunications conference-within-a-conference. Attendees will hear about the latest technologies like high-bandwidth, ultra-short-range DSL and Ethernet from ONTs.

For more information on Allied Fiber, visit www.alliedfiber.com.

By Jaymie Scotto Cutaia

Level 3 Communications says it will buy IP solutions and networking provider Global Crossing. The transaction is valued at $23.04 per share, or approximately $3 billion, including the assumption of approximately $1.1 billion of net debt from Global Crossing. The deal will be an all-stock transaction.

Already folks are speculating on why this deal is huge news.  Acccording to Dean Takahashi on Deals & More, “the deal brings a much-needed consolidation to the broadband market, where the potential for traffic growth is huge but the major players have been hurt by low prices.”

And Gigaom says that the deal will give Level 3 more clout to negotiate with bigger telecommunications players, such as Comcast, even as network ownership consolidates into the hands of fewer players.

But can we boil this down further?

Both L3 and Global Crossing are losing money.  Level3 lost $622 million last year and hasn’t turned a profit since 1998, according to Mr. Takahshi.  And Global Crossing lost $172 million in 2010 and it last turned an annual profit in 2003.

So why now and why an all-stock transaction?  How can a negative and a negative add up to a positive?  What’s the real pay-off here?

Let’s go back to the quote from John Legere, the CEO of Global Crossing, in the official press release, which stated, “The timing of this combination is perfect. The demand for online content – in all its forms – has created unprecedented demand for bandwidth, and our combined platform will enable us to move massive amounts of content around the world, largely on our own facilities, under our control. The need to bring scale to the market is more important than ever before, and that is something that the combined company will have – in spades.”

As Mr. Legere stressed, the deal is all about “on our own facilities, under our control”. This is a direct reference to owning- and therefore controlling the fiber.  The telecom world is quickly dividing into two factions: those who have fiber and those who do not.

This critical infrastructure— and then the power to select whom has access to this infrastructure–   is becoming an apparent, all-out battle.  It stirs up the old net neutrality argument— and how those who have control over the last mile of fiber can thereby dictate the terms, especially for the enterprise market.  So how do we right this ship and get out of the death spiral?  I’ll tell you this: I’m not holding my breath until Global Crossing and Level3 let me have access to their fiber stock.

We need an immediate, carrier and network-neutral, dark fiber provider that is willing to incur the outrageous start-up costs (ideally with government support- if Obama is still interested in his big broadband push) so we can actually lay the much-needed fiber ducts across the expansive USA, to allow folks in the Bible Belt- and the non-NFL cities- to have access to choice and to ‘fiber freedom’.  We need to take the technology that’s blossoming on the east and west coast – and bring it to rural America who could use the fiber and connectivity and access for increasing the wealth of education, starting businesses and saving the family farms.  As a woman who spends her time between the city and the country, and sees the disparity between “those who have” and “those who have not” on a regular basis, it’s time to connect our country.

The 2011 SubTel Forum had a great article called “2011: The Year of the Investment to Neutral, Dark Fiber Network Infrastructure” — and it points out clearly that this is Allied Fiber’s plan— to build the necessary dark fiber infrastructure and give access to all.  And that this fiber plan can be duplicated in metro communities, over and over again, and similar to the Internet, can branch out and reach the hard-to-reach.

This sounds more like the big deal to me.

Does the Fixed Network have a future in Africa?

The leading heads of Africa’s telcos take the temperature of the region’s somewhat crowded telecoms market

How much is too much?

If you’re talking about telecom operators in Ghana, then 200,000 is too much.

That was the view of attendees at the Next Generation Telecoms Africa Summit 2011 which was held in Nairobi from 25-27 January 2011.

At this closed door summit, hosted by GDS International, around 100 C-level participants looked at a range of topics, including the future of the fixed network in Africa.

According to Eric Valentine, Head of Networks Vodafone Ghana, the fixed network can be a key differentiator and there is significant economic advantage to converging the mobile and fixed architecture.

“A major stumbling block, however, is that some markets have too many operators. For example, Ghana has around 200,000 operators who are currently active, including MTN, Tigo, Vodafone, Kasapa and Airtel. The benefits of a fixed line network can be diluted by too many operators,” says Valentine.

Similarly, the advent of mobile technology has meant that investment in fixed technology has been greatly reduced. “So what we did was push people into the fibre network to keep the numbers high. But unfortunately this didn’t work so well.”

Vodafone Ghana even considered selling the fixed line part of its business in the West African nation. “Data growth in fixed ADSL will hopefully bring in more revenue and add huge value. What we’re doing now is targeting the high value cabinet areas. We’re retraining people to interact with their customers and dealing with BT to come and train our staff. We also need to be smarter on workforce management and use tolls in OOS and BSS to do this. Call centres need accurate information because the fixed network is very complex with switches as old as 15 years.”

Looking ahead, Valentine says the next step is to shut down all of the legacy exchanges and evolve to IP transport using CPN and new MPLS infrastructure. “We can then look at backhaul on fixed assets and femtocell technology for improved indoor coverage. There has been a huge surge in data through dongles, so we will be upgrading the internet gateways (multi-service access nodes). We think that simplifying and modifying is the way to go.”

Valentine says Vodafone Ghana plans to start by replacing ageing equipment and launching an aggressive sales campaign for broadband services.

“Customer obsession is the key, the digital divide is closing and data is growing so we need to ensure that we’re not isolated with only one option.”

More than 100 of the industry’s top experts gathered at the Next Generation Telecoms Africa Summit 2011 which was held in Nairobi from 25-27 January 2011. A key opportunity for some of the most respected names in the African telecoms industry to network and engage in a clear and focused dialogue, the Summit also featured key speakers Nizar Dalloul, Founder and Chairman/CEO of Essar Telecom; Patrick Puges, VP Emerging Markets Networks and IT, France Telecom/Orange and Glen Lewis, GVP International Telecoms & Networking, IDC.

The next, Next Generation Telecoms Africa Summit will be hosted by GDS International in Cape Town, South Africa from 13-15th September 2011.

For more information, visit www.ngtafricasummit.com/

Regulation in telecoms industry could kick-start economic growth

The telecoms industry could hold the key to unlocking economic growth and stimulating the global economy – if the regulators get it right.

The global economy may be limping towards the shores of recovery, but the United Nations (UN) predicts that new approaches to regulating information and communication technology (ICT) could help to stimulate investment and growth by rolling out new networks and upgrading technology.

According to a report from the UN International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Trends in Telecommunications Reform, demand for services such as mobile telephones and broadband internet have remained buoyant, despite the economic crisis, with mobile subscriptions set to exceed six billion this year. 

“The industry is currently undergoing a generational shift from fixed telephones networks to mobile connections of all types, next generation networking and broadband wireless networks,” says the report.

Previously clear borders among telephones, broadcasting and online services are being eroded, with people able to watch movies on their computers and programming being downloaded on mobile phones.

Hamadoun Toure, the ITU’s Secretary-General, was reported as saying ICT regulators play a key role in fostering ongoing innovation and competition, “enabling operators to adopt the latest, most powerful technologies and ensuring consumers enjoy the very best range of services at the lowest possible prices”.

Toure admits the economic crisis has sounded the alarm for the need for effective regulation, “and the need for dialogue on the role of Government, which is now considering the need for State intervention to ensure, among other elements, the development of a ‘broadband economy’.”

Furthermore, the report argues that regulators and policy-makers can tackle the potential risk for under-investment in tomorrow’s networks through a two-pronged approach that involves Government-backed funding programmes and effective regulatory strategies and policies.

The role of the telecoms industry in global economic growth is no doubt one of the issues that will be on the agenda at the Next Generation Telecoms MENA Summit 2011, which takes place from 31 October to 2 November at The Meydan Hotel, Jumeirah, Dubai. This closed-door summit, hosted by GDS International, features some of the leading voices in the MENA telecoms sector.

Along with telecoms regulation, other key topics for discussion include maximising mobile broadband profitability, the telco cloud opportunity and mobile payments.

Next Generation Telecoms MENA Summit 2011 is an exclusive C-level event reserved for 100 participants that includes expert workshops, facilitated roundtables, peer-to-peer networks and co-ordinated meetings.

For more information, visit www.ngtsummitmena.com