Today's Top Stories Lumos Networks continued to make progress with its fiber to the cell (FTTC) buildout strategy in the second quarter, connecting 673 wireless cell sites, up 40 sequentially, which represents about a 45 percent year-over-year increase in total FTTC sites. Second-quarter FTTC and transport revenues were $5.04 million and $11.2 million, up from $4.6 million and $10.9 million from the first quarter of 2014, respectively. Following the momentum it made in the second quarter, the service provider reiterated its guidance of reaching 825 FTTC sites by the end of the year and selling 500 to 700 unique and second FTTC circuits during 2014. The telco added that it is also on target to reach 1,500 FTTC sites within the next few years. "Our FTTC operations continued its strong performance, growing 8.5 percent sequentially and surpassing $5 million in quarterly revenues. We see a strong pipeline for both FTTC sales and installations for the rest of 2014," said Tim Biltz, president and CEO of Lumos Networks, in the earnings release. Another element that will expand Lumos' wireless backhaul ambitions is its Project Ark initiative, an 850-mile MEF certified Carrier Ethernet MPLS/IP network overlay designed primarily for FTTC traffic. Lumos said that Project Ark is set to be completed in the third quarter and it expects to begin migrating fiber bandwidth traffic onto the Ark in the fourth quarter. Besides FTTC, the service provider continued to expand its fiber network into more data centers, while furthering the reach of its fiber route miles and on-net building footprint. During the quarter, the service provider added nearly 80 fiber route miles, all of which were constructed and owned by Lumos, ending the period with a total 7,550 route miles. In addition, the company added 33 on-net buildings in the quarter to reach 1,420. On the data center front, Lumos connected its fiber facilities to Peak 10 in Richmond, Va., its fourteenth data center, and said it is close to meeting its target to connect 20 centers by the end of the year. Its move to expand its fiber footprint in Richmond is paying off. As of the end of the second quarter of 2014, Lumos' 110-mile fiber market in Richmond had annualized enterprise and transport sales bookings of approximately $4.2 million. Lumos said in the earnings release that as enterprise bandwidth traffic moves increasingly into the cloud, the company believes that this segment will constitute an increasingly large percentage of total enterprise revenue. Despite the aggressive fiber rollout, enterprise data revenue declined slightly to $10.4 million from $10.6 million in the first quarter. Biltz said the goal is for "accelerated growth in 2015 due to the following initiatives: new customer renewal and retention programs, increased reach of our Carrier End User distribution channels, and the connection to more commercial data centers." Total second-quarter company revenue was $50.2 million, down from $52.3 million year-over-year from the second quarter of 2013 and sequentially from $50.1 million in the first quarter of 2014. Likewise, total adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter of 2014 was $22.7 million, compared to $24.6 million in the second quarter of 2013 and $22.6 million in the first quarter of 2014.
Looking toward the full year 2014, Lumos is maintaining its guidance for revenue of about $200 million and adjusted EBITDA of about $90 million.
Shares of Lumos closed at $14.56, down 45 cents or 3 percent, in Thursday trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
For more:
- see the earnings release Special report: Wireline telecom earnings in the second quarter of 2014
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Lumos employs Cisco for its Project Ark wireless backhaul initiative Read more about: Lumos Networks, second quarter earnings 2014
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Cincinnati Bell and the Communications Workers of America (CWA) have put together a tentative agreement on a new 27-month labor contract representing 850 wireline workers in the union's District 4 region. The new agreement, which will be valid through Nov. 12, 2016, replaces the current three-year agreement that expires at 11:59 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 9, 2014. Linda Hinton, vice president of CWA District 4, said in a release that "I am pleased that we were able to reach a tentative agreement with Cincinnati Bell Telephone." Among the many new elements of the agreement are raises and an enhancement of 401(k) benefits. Each employee will be sent a summary of the new agreement and details will be posted on the CWA's website in the coming days. Union members of CWA Local 4400 will vote to ratify the agreement. CWA said it expects the ratification vote to be completed sometime in September and will be by mail ballot. It's been a busy week for telcos and their union workers, with fellow ILECs FairPoint and Frontier working out the details of new labor agreements with the CWA and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) in their regions. Earlier this week, FairPoint said it wasn't able to come to terms on a new labor agreement for about 1,700 workers represented by IBEW and the CWA, while Frontier put together a tentative labor contract with the CWA in West Virginia. For more:
- see the release Related articles:
Cincinnati Bell's Fioptics revenue jumps 45% to $34M
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Cincinnati Bell Fioptics revenue rises 43 percent to $31 million, drives up wireline segment results
Cincinnati Bell extends 1 Gbps fiber service to The Brandery, sets plan for broader rollout Read more about: Cincinnati Bell
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Bell Canada, an operating subsidiary of BCE Inc., reported that its Bell Fibe TV subscriber base totaled 580,643 at the end of the second quarter, up 67.7 percent from the same period a year ago. Although its total IPTV subscriber base rose, the telco only added 46,533 net new customers in the second quarter compared to 50,555 last year. Bell's Fibe TV footprint passed more than 4.6 million households at the end of the second quarter, up from 3.8 million last year. Bell said the decrease reflects "aggressive offers and service bundle promotions from cable competitors and less footprint expansion compared to the same quarter last year." The telco fared better in the broadband data arena, adding 3,638 new subscribers, up from 2,446 last year. It attributes the rise in broadband subscribers to lower residential customer churn attributable to a high Fibe TV attach rate and higher speeds enabled by Bell's broadband fiber network. Overall, Bell's high-speed Internet subscriber base increased 3.3 percent over last year to 2,203,808. It also took the No. 1 ranking for Canadian providers on Netflix's (NASDAQ: NFLX) global index for online data speeds, beating out 14 Canadian Internet service providers tested each month in the second quarter of 2014. Driven by strong residential services growth and a 3.4 percent increase in IP connectivity revenues in its business services segment, Bell's overall wireline data revenues rose 2 percent to $1.4 billion. Residential data services revenue grew 6.1 percent in the second quarter, reflecting higher Internet and TV revenues driven by continued Fibe customer growth and greater demand for higher bandwidth Internet service. "The fast-growing Fibe TV and Internet footprint is propelling consistent revenue growth in wireline residential services," George Cope, president and CEO of BCE and Bell Canada, in the earnings release. Bell's operating revenue was $4.2 billion, up 5.1 percent sequentially from $4.1 billion in the first quarter. Shares of BCE were listed at $43.88, down 58 cents or 1.29 percent, on the Nasdaq stock exchange. For more:
- see the earnings release Special report: Wireline telecom earnings in the second quarter of 2014
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Bell Canada acquires customer centers in New Brunswick to support growing broadband base
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Bell Aliant to extend fiber-based broadband service to 125,000 Quebec premises
Bell Canada amplifies in-home Wi-Fi speeds with 802.11ac router Read more about: Bce Inc
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NTT Communications is giving its global carrier and enterprise customers yet another path to store their data and enhance their cloud ambitions by extending its IP network into RagingWire's data center facilities in Ashburn, Va., and Sacramento, Calif. By making this move, the service provider said it will be able to further scale its offerings to serve its diverse set of ISPs, content-oriented companies and hosting and content delivery network (CDN) providers, while increasing access to RagingWire's community of Internet, enterprise and government customers. RagingWire's customers in turn will benefit by gaining direct link access to NTT Communications' global IP network and increased global connectivity options that are available in these locations. Both of RagingWire's facilities in Ashburn and Sacramento feature RagingWire's patented 2N+2 data center architecture to ensure redundancy, and are LEED Gold and EPA Energy Star certified. Due to their proximity to major Internet routes, the Ashburn and Sacramento locations are key sites. The 150,000-square-foot facility in Ashburn is located in one of the world's largest Internet traffic interconnection points. To ensure uptime during earthquakes, the 500,000-square-foot West Coast campus in Sacramento is located on a separate tectonic plate from the Bay Area and Silicon Valley while being within driving distance from those areas.
In addition, RagingWire recently announced that its new 180,000-square-foot CA3 data center in Sacramento will be available for customer installations by the end of this year. This expansion is part of NTT's broader network expansion efforts in the U.S. In October 2013, NTT purchased an 80 percent stake in RagingWire to expand and enhance its global data center solutions. For more:
- see the release Related articles:
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NTT's Dimension Data acquires NextiraOne, bolsters European presence
NTT doubles down on cloud services bet with Virtela, RagingWire acquisitions Read more about: RagingWires
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OneNeck IT Solutions, a TDS subsidiary, has added 6,000 square feet of data center space in its Tier III-certified Eden Prairie, Minn., facility, one of the fastest growing business marketplaces in the Twin Cities metro area. The facility, which includes nearly 18,000 square feet of total raised floor space, features various elements to ensure security, including biometric security functionality. Like its other centers, the Eden Prairie facility is also built to be fail-safe and support complex compliance requirements facing businesses today, such as SSAE 16, PCI-DSS and HIPAA. Having Tier III certification is important because it means that if any one critical component is removed through planned maintenance or component failure, mission critical services will not be interrupted. While the Eden Prairie facility is the latest expansion target, it is just one of various sites OneNeck has built. The service provider said that it is in the process of building another data center in the Denver area. OneNeck was also a key contributor to TDS' second-quarter wireline results. During the quarter, OneNeck reported revenues of $67.9 million, up from $41.4 million in the same period a year ago. For more:
- see the release Related articles:
TDS Telecom's OneNeck IT revenues rise to $67.9M on strong managedIP subs
TDS adds New London, N.H., to its 1 Gig fiber-based broadband list
TDS' Salem, Ky., broadband stimulus project extends service to 650 new homes
TDS Telecom taps Bandwidth to create national VoIP-based teleworker product Read more about: data center
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