mergers

Telecom Peek

November 10, 2008

Cbeyond Reports $90.2 in Q3 Revenues, up 25 Percent
Sprint Nextel $600 Million of Debt Coming Due Is Only One Worry - but they have $3B in cash??? Use it to buy a cool phone - T-Mobile, AT&T and VZW are killing Sprint because they have better phones. Handsets drive cellular. Period.
EarthLink has a $54.7M profit last quarter!
I forget that taxes play a huge part in mergers - that's why Embarq & Windstream didn't merge; it plays a part in XO's life (NOL's); and it certainly played a role in the VZ New England spin-off to Fairpoint.
Sprint and Cogent re-connect but continue fighting
JD Power's ISP Ratings are in (here).

Posted in economy, mergers, telco, telecommunications

Where Does AT&T Get the Money?

November 10, 2008

Fresh off of buying Wayport for global wi-fi expansion, AT&T buys Centennial Wireless - $944M for 1.1 million cell subs. AT&T is either at the point that they have to keep buying to keep the growth going or they have Monopoly Madness.

Posted in channel, mergers, telco

One More Race: Wi-Fi

November 6, 2008

Well, AT&T wanted to be known as a wireless company, so that explains AT&T buying Wayport today for approximately $275 million in cash. Wi-Fi is the new battle ground between Sprint and the Pivot posse and the RBOC's. Wayport manages about 12,000 hotpsots including McDonald's.

AT&T figures with millions of devices utilizing a wi-fi signal, they should own that transit. Before cable does or Sprint/Clearwire/Xohm does.

If you want the snarky post about this, go here.

Posted in mergers, wi-fi, wireless

FCC Voted Today too

November 4, 2008

The FCC voted today too. They took the Inter-Carrier Compensation and USF off the agenda, much to Martin's dismay.

"Federal regulators have approved a plan to open up unused, unlicensed portions of the television airwaves known as "white spaces" to deliver wireless broadband service." [Y! news] [fcc.gov]

FCC approved, with conditions, the mergers of Sprint-Nextel/Clearwire and Alltel-Verizon. [fcc.gov]

FCC opened an investigation into the pricing policies of major cable operators and Verizon. "The agency wants to ensure the companies' customers are getting treated fairly, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said in an interview with The Associated Press." [Y! news]

Posted in FCC, broadband, cableco, cellular, mergers, telco, wireless

FCC Doing Heavy Lifting

October 23, 2008

The FCC is holding a meeting on Nov. 4. On the agenda: Inter-Carrier Compensation, Alltel-VZ merger, Clearwire-Sprint merger, and a vote of White Spaces. Lots of heavy lifting on this agenda. Martin wants to give his pals at VZ one more gift before he goes.

Posted in FCC, duopoly, mergers, telco, telecommunications, voip, wi-fi, wireline

Is Nuvox Buying One?

October 21, 2008

Nuvox is out kicking tires to see who they can buy. Rumor has it that Greenville-based Nuvox is looking to buy One Communications in the Northeast to expand their footprint, especially their MPLS reach. (I didn't know Nuvox sold MPLS. I thought they were just a cheap Integrated T1 supplier).

Posted in mergers, telco

Cisco is Jabbering

September 20, 2008

In 2007, Cisco integrated Jabber components into its conferencing platform. Today, Cisco buys Jabber, "an open-source IM and presence protocol used by Google Talk and Gizmo, for an undisclosed sum". On our panel at IT Expo, The Role of Apps in VoIP, we talked about Gen Y not liking to talk on the phone. My conclusion is that you will need to incorporate XMPP and XML to enable chat, instant messaging, SMS messaging to IP phone - all to communicate with employees, customers, vendors - without talking on a phone.

Posted in apps, im/chat, mergers, voip, xmpp

GenBand's M6 Acquired by Broadsoft

August 29, 2008

A couple of clients use GenBand. They are in for a shock today as Broadsoft announced "their acquisition of GENBAND's M6 Communication Applications Server, formerly VocalData, product line and related customer base." Broadsoft will now have 435 client companies.

Broadsoft says, "Yes, a bit of consolidation and widening of partnerships .... I think it will serve the M6 customer base very well."

On a CLEC listserv, the discussion recently was about this space - the Hosted VoIP Application Services space.

Posted in mergers, voip

Is Ma Bell Looking to the Sky?

August 5, 2008

Over at Xchange magazine, Bob Wallace writes about the possibility of Ma Bell buying one of the DBS companies. Since Murdoch owns DirecTV and he fought so hard for it, I don't see him giving it up.

However, DISH did split its business into wholesale and retail divisions to make room for a sale. And they did have a subscriber loss this quarter.

Posted in cableco, mergers, telco, video

What's Next for AOL?

August 4, 2008

It seems that TimeWarner is ready to eject AOL. One part will be the remnants of the ISP business, which I think EarthLink will grab, but Tara Seals at Xchange mag thinks that United Online (NetZero folks) or MSn would bid. I don't think in this economy that there will be bidding war for dial-up users, a declining revenue vehicle. Also, EarthLink is out looking to buy dial-up base. United Online is focused on its online properties (classmates and points.com) and they just bought FTD. MSN is not an ISP, but an internet portal for companies like Qwest. MSN likely would want the advertising piece of AOL, which I think Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft would bid for.

Posted in Internet, mergers, telco

Previous 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

On Rad's Radar?

mergers