650 Group Blog
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We had the opportunity to speak with an exciting Internet Service Provider (ISP) called GeoLinks today. Skyler Ditchfield, the CEO, shared his thoughts on the recent spectrum acquisition from Verizon and how it will change the company’s addressable market. We think what GeoLinks has done with this spectrum acquisition is interesting because this is a medium-sized company buying spectrum from one of the world’s largest operators. The company is planning such a rapid expansion to many important broadband markets.
On March 25, 2021, GeoLinks announced that it had acquired approximately 80% of Verizon’s LMDS fixed use 29-31 GHz mmWave spectrum. This spectrum does not include Verizon’s mmWave spectrum holdings that it uses to service mobile users, so recent iPhone models that communicate with Verizon’s mmWave will continue to work as they always have. According to GeoLinks, this new spectrum increases its homes passed metric for residential to 90.6 million homes and businesses to 5.9 million businesses. Markets in which it acquired spectrum include New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Atlanta, Houston, Washington, DC, Boston, Tampa-St. Petersburg, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Detroit, Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, Charlotte, St. Louse, Raleigh-Durham and Indianapolis, among others. With the recent spectrum acquisition, GeoLinks is expanding its footprint from a predominantly California (plus southern Nevada) to a nationwide coverage map. We asked Mr. Ditchfield what the company’s plans are for expanding to the new territories. We learned that the company is planning a “roll-up” strategy to acquire Wireless ISPs (WISPs) and small local wireline broadband companies. As these acquisitions occur, GeoLinks plans to offer the acquired companies’ customers the new, higher-speed wireless service in the new spectrum. GeoLinks plans new rounds of financing, which may come as soon as a couple of months from now.
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Cisco's customer event, Cisco Live (virtual), is underway, and the company made many announcements. We are emphasizing what we think are the most relevant, which include Observability capabilities, Network as a Service (NaaS), and SASE. Here is a rundown of what we learned about today. Core portfolio (includes Campus Ethernet Switches, Wireless LAN).
Security (includes Firewall, Content Security, Identity).
 Chuck Robbins, CEO of Cisco Systems at Cisco Live on March 30, 2021 In the news this week, Cisco has entered an agreement to sell HashiCorp Terraform® Cloud Business alongside its own Cisco Intersight® platform. Cisco and HashiCorp are helping enterprises accelerate application innovation, including automated management and security, across hybrid clouds. The deal helps enterprises achieve a hybrid cloud operating model using HashiCorp’s “infrastructure as code” for network provisioning and management of private data centers via Intersight. The Cisco Intersight Service for Terraform will offer a bridge to easily and securely integrate on-premises environments with Terraform Cloud Business, and enable IT Ops and DevOps teams to automate infrastructure provisioning using infrastructure as code across hybrid cloud. Why this matters? This arrangement provides flexibility to those organizations running both public cloud and private data center environments. Because provisioning can be complex across multiple clouds, customers can benefit from HashiCorp Terraform Cloud as it allows Network Operation teams to provision multi-cloud infrastructure, and manage risks for security, compliance, and operational constraints in a more automated and consistent way, and then extend provisioning into private networks/data centers. Additionally, infrastructure security for applications and services across multi-cloud environments and private/distributed data centers remains paramount for enterprises. Specifically addressed security elements in the Cisco + HashiCorp agreement include policy, SSO, and audit logging. Implementing automation tools to keep settings and policies consistent — and easily replicated— goes a long way towards ensuring data is protected to a high standard, wherever it is moving. Lastly, according to the press release, Cisco will also offer centralized support across customers’ Intersight and HashiCorp Terraform Cloud Business environments under the Cisco Solution Support program.  |
CHRIS DePUY
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