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Posts Tagged ‘japan tsunami’

Kansas City Data Center, 1102 GRAND, Reviews AT&T’s Plan To Merge with Wireless Provider T-Mobile

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011

Posted By: Darren Bonawitz, principal of 1102 GRAND

In the telecom sector, specifically the wireless industry, AT&T’s plan to buy wireless provider T-Mobile for a reported $39 billion is the biggest piece of news in awhile. While I do not normally comment on deals and transactions, this one has particular interest to me with Sprint being headquartered in Overland Park. For several years, I along with many others, were waiting on an announcement from Sprint and T-Mobile regarding a merger.

bigstockphoto Business Merger 681884 Kansas City Data Center, 1102 GRAND, Reviews AT&Ts Plan To Merge with Wireless Provider T Mobile

The industry has been full of rumors regarding the joining of the third and fourth largest wireless providers to form a unified wireless company that could potentially compete more effectively with the first and second largest wireless providers, Verizon Wireless and AT&T. So the AT&T / T-Mobile announcement came as a surprise to me. Before I go any further, it is important to note that this is just an announcement about a potential transaction, and there are still considerable regulatory hurdles to cross. That process is not quick or guaranteed and could take a year or more to run its course.

As one of the major employers in the Kansas City metropolitan area, news regarding Sprint is of particular interest even when they are not directly involved. It is no secret that Sprint has really struggled over the past several years with customer churn, financial losses, and poor marks for customer service based on third party surveys. With that said, over the past twelve months or so, it appears Sprint has made major strides to improve across various areas to curb the customer churn and improve customer service ratings. This surprise announcement could not have resonated well within the Sprint campus leaving people scratching their heads and wondering what this means for consumers, the industry as a whole, their employer and employees.

They are not alone as people close to the industry are wondering and speculating as well. While Sprint, in my opinion, is certainly not in any eminent danger, they are definitely not in an enviable position either. I will be very curious to see if customer churn starts to increase again. That would definitely not be a good sign and could escalate a potential next move for them before market cap erodes.

First, I expect a revamped marketing campaign and focus on continued improvement with regard to existing customer relations. Once existing customers are addressed, then they can dig in for the fight to attract new customers. I have witnessed multiple large scale fiber network integrations and they are always a tedious process with potential pitfalls. Who knows? Maybe Sprint can successfully position themselves as the friendly “little guy” alternative to the “big boys.” People like choices and America likes the underdog and come back stories. I’ll also be curious to see if they start going after small acquisitions of their own targeting someone like U.S. Cellular or pre-paid providers as some speculate.

While a lot of peoples’ immediate response was that the AT&T/T-Mobile announcement set up a potential Verizon Wireless / Sprint deal, I’m not so sure. Keep in mind that it is more than just dollars and customers that makes a deal a good fit. These are businesses built on extremely expensive network platforms that have to interconnect and interoperate. In fact, that is likely a potential reason the Sprint / T-Mobile deal did not get done. With that in mind, I could just as easily see, what I would call a non-traditional buyer without a legacy wireless network, enter the picture. This will be an interesting story for people in the industry as well as the Kansas City area to watch as it unfolds.

Tags: 1102 GRAND, 1102 Grand Network Operations Center, AT&T, business merger, colocation facility, colocation provider, colocation services, convergence, cross-border communication services, Darren Bonawitz, data center, data center cost, data center knowledge, data center network, data center news, data center operations, data center server, data center servers, data center trends, data colocation, datacenter, Earth Day, electrical energy, electricity, Energy, energy advantages, energy conservation, energy cost, energy saving, energy savings, energy-efficiency, expansion, facility, financial, generation power, generator transfer switch, google adwords, green data center, green energy, Green IT, greening it, hardware, hardware maintenance, Internet Hub, internet services, Japan, japan earthquake, japan tsunami, Kansas City, kansas city business, kansas city businesses, Kansas City data center, KC colocation, KC data center, Missouri, Mo, Sprint, T-Mobile, wireless, wireless provider
Posted in 1102 GRAND, Colocation Information, Data Center Cooling, Data Center Security, Disaster Recovery Solution, Energy, Green IT, healthcare it, Location, Midwest data center, Networking, raised floors, Saving Money | No Comments »

Major Tokyo Data Centers Fuel Up for Blackouts

Thursday, March 17th, 2011

Like many people, I have been following the aftermath of the massive earthquake to hit Japan. Specifically, I have been reading articles from various sources regarding data centers and telecommunications. This article, from Data Center Knowledge, is one that raised an interesting point that I thought I would share.

Major Tokyo Data Centers Fuel Up for Blackouts

Many enterprise data centers still do not have generators and many that do unfortunately do not service them properly including keeping fuel topped off. Others do a good job in these areas, but are still at risk unknowingly because of the potential refueling issues due to significant demand following major catastrophes or lack of an existing fuel contract altogether.

It does not take a 9.0 earthquake to cause issues such as this either. A few years ago, there was a significant thunderstorm that went through the Kansas City area, and one of the diesel fuel suppliers took a hit from lightning and had a large tank catch on fire. This single lightning bolt caused major issues for all customers relying on that wholesaler across the metro since they could not supply any additional fuel. So gas stations around the metro were out of diesel fuel for multiple days, and that would have been a very bad time for needing fuel if companies or data centers were only serviced by that wholesaler.

Fortunately, 1102 GRAND has fuel contracts in place with multiple providers who are serviced by multiple diesel wholesalers from diverse areas.

Read Article

Tags: 1102 GRAND, 1102 Grand Network Operations Center, colocation facility, colocation provider, colocation services, convergence, cross-border communication services, Darren Bonawitz, data center, data center cost, data center knowledge, data center network, data center news, data center operations, data center server, data center servers, data center trends, data colocation, datacenter, Earth Day, electrical energy, electricity, Energy, energy advantages, energy conservation, energy cost, energy saving, energy savings, energy-efficiency, expansion, facility, financial, generation power, generator transfer switch, google adwords, green data center, green energy, Green IT, greening it, hardware, hardware maintenance, Internet Hub, internet services, Japan, japan earthquake, japan tsunami, kansas city business, Kansas City data center, KC colocation, KC data center
Posted in 1102 GRAND, Colocation Information, Data Center Cooling, Data Center Security, Disaster Recovery Solution, Energy, Green IT, healthcare it, Location, Midwest data center, Networking, raised floors, Saving Money | No Comments »

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Posts Tagged ‘japan tsunami’

Kansas City Data Center, 1102 GRAND, Reviews AT&T’s Plan To Merge with Wireless Provider T-Mobile

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011

Major Tokyo Data Centers Fuel Up for Blackouts

Thursday, March 17th, 2011