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FCC Report of Obviousness

July 23, 2010

The FCC released the Sixth Broadband Deployment Report. Due to the FCC changing the definition of broadband from the decade old standard of 200 Kbps downstream, most DSL won't count as Broadband since the FCC now defines broadband as 4 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream. In accordance with that, you would expect the report to state that hundreds of millions of Americans cannot get broadband, but "The report, based on data provided by service providers for December 2008, found that between 14 million and 24 million U.S. residents (which is about 4.5% to 8% of the U.S.

Posted in FCC, Internet, broadband, cableco, fiber, telco, telecommunications, wireline

FiberNet Changes Hands (Again)

July 20, 2010

One Communications sold off its FiberNet holdings - 100,000access lines and about 3,500 route miles - to NTELOS, according to a press release. The price tag: "for cash consideration of approximately $170 million." Huh? What is that?

I'm translating this from the One CEO to mean we needed the cash or cash consideration:

Posted in fiber, mergers

Zayo Buys AFS

July 1, 2010

As Rob Powell predicted, the self-proclaimed Fiber Bigot, Dave Rusin, CEO of Rochester-based American Fiber Systems, sold the company to Zayo. Some reports were that the sale price was $185M, but Zayo is stating that number is ridiculous. The original press release did not offer a price tag.

Consider that Zayo financed $250M in debt at 10.25% in April. It's AGL acuisition is still pending. Zayo has a capital intensive business (building out fiber always is). And it's a VC backed company. Zayo smacks of a roll-up waiting for the right time to resell.

Posted in fiber, mergers, telco

Is FiOS Crushing Verizon?

June 11, 2010

Is Verizon getting crushed by their FiOS project?

A source says that the labor force internally has shifted around so that the FiOS department is a separate stand-alone department without access from other departments. In other words, FiOS is a silo. That's not that unusual in big corporations, especially telcos.

Posted in ISP, Internet, broadband, fiber, telco

Can Copper Turn to Gold?

May 25, 2010

People ask me about the CenturyLink-Qwest merger. I'm still trying to get over the CTEL-Embarq merger. And wrapping my head around bigger is better when that has been proven to be a hoax recently (Too Big to Fail?) is causing a headache.

Rich Tehrani sent me an article from Barrons, CenturyLink's POTS of Gold.

Posted in FCC, broadband, fiber, mergers, telco, wireless, wireline

Lit Building Strategy

May 17, 2010

Rob Powell at Telecom Ramblings has his lit building chart updated. Top 5 most lit buildings is TWT, L3, Optimum Lightpath, FiberTech and XO at 3000.

So L3 tried to sell mainly on-net via the channel. They would light any building within 400 feet of a fiber route.

Posted in CLEC, agents, channel, fiber, sales and selling

The Landline Dilemma

April 26, 2010

As CenturyTel buys up Embarq and Qwest and Windstream buys up IOC's and CLEC's, the question remains: What do you do with all that declining wireline revenue with mounting debt?

Unless 100MB DSL becomes a reality that can be rolled out to 75% of their base, I don't see how these 2 ILEC's pay back the debt.< p/>

Their FTTx strategy is in pilot status. How do they compete against DOCSIS 3.0 from the top MSO's?

Posted in cellular, fiber, telco, wireline

Our Economic Survival

March 25, 2010

The FCC's National Broadband Plan suggests that adding 500 MHz of spectrum to the mix will fix most things. HA!

I thought when Julius became FCC Chair we would have some change. Instead, we get the idea that if we give more spectrum to companies that already have spectrum we will improve the current situation.

Somebody please explain how?

Sprint, Clearwire, T-Mobile, VZW and AT&T have spectrum that they have not turned up yet. Giving them more - and varied - spectrum will not make any marked improvement.

How many radios do you thing we can add to a cellular handset?

Posted in FCC, broadband, cellular, economy, fiber, politics, spectrum, wireless

Ill. Judge Only Smart One

March 12, 2010

Only a single judge in Illinois has the common sense to see that the Frontier-Verizon deal is very similar to the Fairpoint-Verizon deal that resulted in a bankruptcy within 18 months while screwing consumers in three states.

The Herald-Review has a report about "An administrative law judge ruled that the planned sale of Verizon's land-line service to Frontier Communications should not be approved by state regulators.... In her ruling, Administrative Law Judge Lisa M. Tapia says evidence presented in the case in front of the Illinois Commerce Commission doesn't support the sale, primarily because the transaction would leave Frontier too laden with debt to be able to properly manage the lines and other infrastructure."

This was exactly the deal with Fairpoint.

Posted in Internet, broadband, fiber, mergers, spectrum, telco, wireline

Channel Partners Need a Net-Head

March 1, 2010

Arrived in Vegas for the Channel Partners Expo (in conjunction with VoIP Nation). Seems everyone I speak with is looking for sales. We have at least as many channel agents as we have always had, so why the growing need for sales?

I think one reason is that most of the channel partners are TDM. Plug and play.

Posted in Internet, PBX, VAR, agents, bandwidth, cellular, channel, conferencing, fiber, saas, telecommunications, wi-fi, wireless

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