In my 2006 Predictions, I predicted that Microsoft would buy Level3. It was more of a "should" than "would" prediction. I intertwined some "should" predictions into my "would" predictions. In any event, the rumor mill is churning around a Microsoft buyout of Yahoo for $80 billion. Ironically, Yahoo's primary bandwidth provider is... you guessed it - Level 3. Very interesting. Maybe Microsoft should buy Level 3 first, which would then make Yahoo! a bandwidth customer of Microsoft's. This might lessen the psychological blow of "selling out" to their rival Microsoft. It may even give Microsoft some leveraging power on the stock price. Kill three birds with one stone. Gain a search engine (Yahoo), tons of bandwidth (Level 3), and gain a foothole in the lucrative VoIP market (Level 3). Course, then they'd have to rename MCI Web Calling for Windows Live Call (dumbest product name of 2005) and MCI wouldn't be too happy over Microsoft acquiring their rival, Level3.