Internet Networks are in growth mode as profits and margins improve.  WSJ has a post on growth in metro markets.

Fiber-Optic Networks Regain Some Glow

Data Traffic Turns Regional Operators Into Buyout Targets

By SHAYNDI RAICE

After the telecom bubble burst a decade ago, fiber was a dirty word.

Finding Fiber | A look at local providers

Zayo Group manages about 21,500 route miles of fiber in 146 markets across the U.S., including Philadelphia.

Zayo has purchased a series of smaller fiber companies, including American Fiber Systems, Memphis Networx and Columbia Fiber Solutions.

Lightower Fiber Networks, which operates a network in Boston and other Northeast cities, has about 5,500 route miles of fiber.

Lightower, which was spun off by utility National Grid and backed by private-equity firms, has bought five other fiber companies since 2008.

Now, the fiber-optic network business is enjoying a resurgence, particularly for metro fiber, the high-capacity lines that connect a city's office buildings, data centers and cellular towers to the Internet.

There have been 14 acquisitions in the industry this year alone and 45 since the fiber market began its turnaround in 2006, according to investment bank Cowen & Co.

"There's a shortage of metro fiber, and the demand is just going through the roof," said Rob Shanahan, chief executive of Lightower Fiber Networks, a fiber company serving the Northeast that has acquired five other companies since 2008.

CNET news has a photo essay on an Alcatel-Lucent undersea cable ship.

Aboard an Alcatel-Lucent undersea cable ship (photos)

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September 5, 2010 6:00 AM PDT

This is one of Alcatel-Lucent's repeaters, which are used to amplify the signal at various points along the cable. This repeater, a model from two years ago, has a throughput of around 1.5 terabits per second.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/2300-1035_3-10004733-11.html?tag=mncol#ixzz19c8nU4tp

The project highlighted is an Africa cable.

Philippe Dumont is in charge of Alcatel-Lucent's submarine network business. The market for such deployments, he said, has remained "quite stable" over the last couple of recessionary years, which "came as quite a surprise" to Alcatel-Lucent.

Dumont said the biggest cabling project in the world right now is Africa, but the connectivity being deployed there will be quite different from what people in the U.K. are used to. "Access to the Internet in Africa is mostly based on mobile," he said. "You will not see DSL, but you will see mobile broadband through smartphones and USB dongles."

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/2300-1035_3-10004733-2.html?tag=mncol#ixzz19c93vlIx

Frost and Sullivan has a press release on a study they conducted.

Frost & Sullivan: New Datacenters and Green Technology to Double PAC Revenues in Southeast Asia

The increasing demand in the telecommunication, industrial and IT sectors are increasing the deployment of Precision air conditioning (PAC) as a viable and cost-effective power solution.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PRLog (Press Release) – Dec 27, 2010 – Singapore – Precision air conditioning (PAC) is gaining ground due to the increasing demand from the telecommunication, industrial, and IT sectors. Development in these industries is driving new installations and commissioning of datacenters, data communication, and power equipment. The resulting uptake of blade servers and high-power servers translates to higher heat dissipation, which can affect electronic and electrical systems. Deploying PAC systems can help suppress the rising average operating temperature in datacenters.
New analysis from Frost & Sullivan (http://www.energy.frost.com), Southeast Asian and Australasian Precision Air Conditioning (PAC) Market, finds that the PAC market in these regions earned revenues of $217.7 million in 2009 and estimates this to reach $415.7 million in 2016.

The Green (energy-efficiency) aspect is part of their study.

“Technological evolvement has led to energy-efficient PAC systems with sophisticated architecture or structural orientation such as rack or row cooling methods,” says Frost & Sullivan Analyst Teoh Chew Yew. “With its ability to efficiently manage and regulate working environmental conditions like temperature and humidity, PAC is gaining market traction in the IT and telecom industry as a viable and cost-effective power solution.”
However, competition and environmental concerns are putting pressure on power systems and equipment to perform effectively and meet stringent requirements and specifications. As research and development emphasizes on energy and system efficiency, average power density and heat dissipation per power system is anticipated to decline. This, in turn, can eventually erode the demand for PAC.