UK based Colt, an alternative telco leader in software defined and virtualized WANs (see sections below for examples), is plotting an assault on the US metro fiber market next year (i.e. in 2018).  According to the Financial Times (on line subscription required), Colt wants to become world’s largest metro fiber company within three years.  That’s a truly optimistic goal considering all the legacy fiber facilities based network operators, including Century Link which now owns Level One’s fiber assets.

Colt remains one of the most substantial “alt-nets”(alternative or competitive facilities based wireline network operators) still in operation and this year has been investing in its networks in Singapore, Tokyo and Osaka as part of its expansion plan (see section below for more on this).

The telco hopes to build or buy networks in several large US cities that also says the provider might lease some facilities from other vendors. CEO Carl Grivner cited the expected fiber boom from cloud services and the internet of things (IoT) as Colt’s basis for optimism.  The company will also look to expand its networks in the UK outside of London in Manchester and Birmingham in the UK.

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On January 12, 2017, Colt announced it was  investing in Asia metro area networks.   In particular, it will expand and enhance the Colt IQ Network™ in Singapore and Hong Kong in 2017 as part of its plans to invest significantly into Asia over the next three years. In Singapore, these investments will revolve around a series of initiatives that include a large-scale expansion of existing coverage, provisioning of high-bandwidth capacity, and new digging projects for Colt’s next-generation fiber optics.

The Colt network expansion, comprising both Optical and Ethernet architectures, will provide high-bandwidth services to major buildings and data centers across Asia. The investment underlines the growing bandwidth demands of global organizations, particularly in digital, data-intensive industries.

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The move to target US fiber investment reminds us of the ill-fated strategy of Cable & Wireless in 2000-2001, when that UK network operator pumped billions of pounds into US acquisitions months before the market collapsed.

CEO Grivner, who worked at Cable & Wireless along with XO (now owned by Verizon), said that, with cloud computing and technology relating to the “internet of things” only growing, the bet on expansion looked safer than it did at the turn of the century. “I don’t think it is going to take a pause. The growth has caught up to the hype,” he said.

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Other Voices:

Fierce Telecom wrote on June 19, 2017:

Colt’s plans to build a mixed network in the U.S. should not be a great surprise. In November 2016, Colt said it was expanding its North American sales and support teams.   While the focus was to leverage type 2 facilities from other carriers, Colt’s initial foray into the United States could challenge AT&T and Verizon, attracting more multinational customers that need local and international connectivity services.

As a Pan-European provider, Colt operates in 20 countries across Europe and Asia. One of its first moves was to open two regional offices: one in Chicago and another in Jersey City, New Jersey.

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At the 2017 Open Network Summit, this author attended an impressive presentation by Colt’s experience in deploying SDN and NFV solutions in production both for Ethernet and IP services, the learning associated as well as their future plans. In particular, Javier Benitez covered Colt developments around Ethernet and IP on Demand, SD VPN, SDN controlled MPLS packet core and SDN/NFV NNI standardization.  His presentation is available on reader request.  Other 2017 Open Network Summit presentations can be downloaded for free here.

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SDx Central wrote last November:

AT&T is working with Colt Technology Services to provision network services using a programmatic API-to-API interface between separate software-defined networking (SDN) architectures.

The test occurred between two networks — one in the U.S. and one in Europe — and demonstrated that enterprises can provision on-demand, scalable network services across multiple locations and multiple networks, even networks from different service providers.  The trial took place between the East Coast of the U.S. and various locations in Europe, and it combined AT&T and Colt’s on-demand network capabilities. AT&T and Colt plan to share the network-to-network interface and open API code with standards bodies and industry forums.

This is an important finding for service providers that want to sell services to enterprises. With this capability, enterprises will be able to reserve ports, order a point-to-point Ethernet service, or adjust their bandwidth requirements on demand.

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About Colt:

Colt, formerly known as City of London Telecom, is owned by fund manager Fidelity which was an original investor in the business when it was founded 25 years ago. The company was briefly a rising star of the UK telecoms sector, achieving a valuation of £4bn and entering the FTSE 100. However, it struggled to fulfill its growth potential, as moves into IT services and data centers in the past decade failed to pay off. Fidelity de-listed the business in 2015.

Mr Grivner said it was easier to invest in the telecom business (as a network operator) outside the glare of the public markets.  Therefore, there were no plans to relist the company’s shares.