"CenturyLink Inc.'s (CTL) second-quarter earnings fell 36% amid early-debt extinguishment and weaker margins, though the telecom company's revenue was boosted by an acquisition," writes the WSJ. "Revenue increased 4.7% to $4.61 billion, mostly as its Savvis acquisition added $278 million, as well as growth in demand for digital services."

What amazes me is that these giants keep getting bigger and the only metric growing is debt.

It is going to take some big CAPEX to beef up cloud, data center, EoC, broadband and TV services for CLT. How do they focus on that when CAPEX will affect their financials, that is tied to their debt?

Cloud isn't selling as well as the hype that goes with it. Yet. CLT is banking on a big bright future. Truth is CLT, while still headquartered in Monroe, Louisiana, is far removed from its rural ILEC days. It's future lies in federal cloud and WAN contracts; Fortune 5000 MPLS based on its fiber network; global sales for cloud, data center and networking; and data center services. None of these services were on their balance sheet 3 years ago.

Interesting corrollary is that 3 years ago, CLT didn't have a channel either. Now it's channel will be looked upon to drive a lot of cloud and data center sales.

I wonder if the CAF, ARRA and USF funds show up as revenue?