Peter : On Rad's Radar?
Peter
| Peter Radizeski of RAD-INFO, Inc. talking telecom, Cloud, VoIP, CLEC, and The Channel.

telco

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?

Qwest Merging with CenturyLink

April 22, 2010

News reports this morning from NYTimesBusinesWeek and MarketWatch have CenturyLink merging with Qwest in an all stock deal. Huh?!

"The firms say the deal values Qwest at $22.4 billion, including $11.8 billion of assumed debt." [MW]

"The combination creates a national, 173,000-mile fiber network, the firms said.

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.

How Do They Avoid Being Just the Dumb Pipe

February 11, 2010

On LinkedIn there was a question in the Telecom Executives Business Network group: "How can a Telco Service Provider value chain defend itself from the attack by the emerging "Cloud" services? My understanding is that the emerging "cloud" services remove value-add and differentiation from the Telco service providers which are cornered to act just as the bit-stream providers (especially for the retail market)."

My answer to that was as follows:

Most telco carriers worry about becoming a Dumb Pipe. Isenberg told them this would happen.

Is it the Regulatory Environment?

February 9, 2010

In a twitter exchange with Erik Cecil, former regulatory counsel at Level3, we were dialoging about the Fairpoint bankruptcy. (FairPoint aims to cut debt by two-thirds).

My reply stated, "Just 2 years after the deal w/VZ to create an unstable Fairpoint despite opposition, Fairpoint screws everyone." By everyone, I mean the customers, the economy, the state, the PUC who approved the deal despite being against it (And Erik, you think there is regulation?), the workers, the Union, shareholders and the debt holders. I actually don't care about the last two, because both should have known it was going to go POOF!

ISP Sues ILEC for $10B

February 9, 2010

Which Docket, Dave?

February 4, 2010

Dave Rusin is the CEO of American Fiber Systems. He is a self-proclaimed fiber bigot. He has a two part blog post about the Special Access fight at the FCC. 

Dave may have his dockets confused. He calls it the Special Access docket at the FCC, but he is really ranting about the UNE docket. What's the difference?

The Special Access docket was started by Sprint and T-Mobile.



Can You Stop Billing Me?

February 4, 2010

AT&T terminated the CallVantage service in November. Not only was porting the number out of CallVantage a challenge, but they continue to send me a bill for a service that they terminated!

I can't log in because the phone number is no longer with ATT. So I email for help.

Stalled Stimulus of Broadband

January 8, 2010

It was July of 2009 when the applications for BTOP and BIB awards were due. It's January 2010 and shovel ready awards have been granted mainly for middle mile projects. Where are the rest of the awards?

We can look at the failure of Muni Wi-Fi (last mentioned when EarthLink's wi-fi network in Phillie was acquired by the city for $2M).

Fostering Broadband Competition

December 29, 2009

One of the Broadband Stimulus grants (at $33M) went to North Georgia Network Cooperative. ComputerWorld is all atwitter because this grant means that NGNC will compete with Windstream, which already offers 10Mb to 100MB Internet Access in that region. And "Windstream covers about 70 percent of the area that North Georgia Network Cooperative proposes to cover using government money".

The irony is that pundits are criticizing the FCC's new National Broadband Policy precisely because it does NOT include any measures to increase competition for broadband. Now one of the few grants approved actually will increase broadband competition in Dawsonville and the surrounding area and one media outlet is upset.

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