Equinix announced a $750 million senior credit facility consisting of a $550 million senior secured revolving credit facility and a $200 million senior secured term loan facility. Both the revolving credit facility and the term loan facility have a five year maturity date extending to June 2017.
Proceeds from the senior credit facility were used to repay term loans of Equinix’s Asia-Pacific subsidiaries under its multi-currency credit facility agreement dated May 10, 2010 for approximately $200 million.
"We are pleased with the successful completion of this senior credit facility, which heightens our liquidity position and enhances our ability to invest in our growth opportunities. We had high caliber financial institutions subscribing to this transaction and the strong demand and recognition for our credit is a testament to Equinix’s operating performance and credit strength," said Keith Taylor, chief financial officer for Equinix. http://www.equinix.com
Eutelsat is boosting the performance of its Tooway satellite service to up to 18 Mbps to residential customers across Europe and the Mediterranean Basin. Upload speeds up to 6 Mbps are possible. The upgrade is achieved using better modulation -- from 8PSK to 16APSK. Previously, the top rate was 10 Mbps.
Tooway is delivered via Eutelsat's KA-SAT High Throughput Satellite. The company provides a cap of up to 50 Gigabytes per month. The pricing levels remain the same. A new entry level package is also being launched, offering download speeds of up to 2Mbps and upload speeds of up to 1Mbps for an expected retail price from EUR19.90. http://www.tooway.com
The GSA (Global mobile Suppliers Association) confirms that 67 manufacturers have announced 417 LTE-enabled user devices, including frequency and carrier variants. This includes 83 LTE smartphones, 31 tablets, 45 modules, 19 Notebooks, 1 PC card, 3 Femtocells, 157 Routers, and 78 Dongles.
Research for the report covered devices for use on FDD or TDD modes of the LTE system, their form factors, operating frequencies , and the fallback technologies which are supported when customers move outside the LTE coverage areas (i.e. ability to access HSPA, HSPA+, DC-HSPA+, EV-DO, or TD-SCDMA systems).
Some other notes:
68 devices can operate in the TDD mode.
267 LTE devices also operate on either HSPA, HSPA+ or DC-HSPA+ networks, ensuring a seamless mobile broadband experience for customers moving between LTE and HSPA coverage footprints. Within this figure, 109 LTE devices can operate on 42 Mbps HSPA+ systems.
126 LTE devices support operation on EV-DO networks.
The report also considered the availability of devices by frequency band and support of the likely required combinations. The report findings are summarized below for the main LTE bands:
700 MHz (US Digital Dividend, various bands) 193 devices
Acacia Research Corporation announced its acquisition of 4 patent portfolios with 48 U.S. and International patents covering technologies relating to online collaboration, data networking, cellular communications and digital cameras. Financial terms and other details were not disclosed.
"Acacia is rapidly becoming the leader in technology licensing and we continue to grow our base of future revenues by adding new patent portfolios," commented Paul Ryan, Acacia CEO and President. http://www.acaciaresearchgroup.com
