Following up on my yesterday’s post on Bandwidth demand and slow comeback of the industry, Sean Doherty of Odyssey Telecom writes:

bq. We’re hearing that there’s some cautious optimism reflected in the wholesale fiber buying habits of carriers – esp in contract term. The dominant practice during 2002-3 was single year contract terms (or even month-to-month) …allowing the carrier-buyer to negotiate more favorable pricing at renewal time each year. Now, more than a handful of larger carriers are once again committing to 3-5 year contracts for new infrastructure requirements. The smart carriers seem now to prefer locking in a nice discount for multi-year terms rather than relying on future market price declines that may not appear.
I’d say the rebound has arrived…it’s just not evenly distributed.