Per an FCC filing (WC Docket No. 10-231) DISH Media is acquiring Liberty-Bell Telecom, a Colorado limited liability company, which provides competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) and long distance services in Colorado and has limited operations in New Mexico and Utah. DISH Media, a Colorado corporation, is a wholly owned subsidiary of DISH Network Corporation, a U.S.-based publicly traded holding company that provides pay-TV services nationwide but does not provide telecommunications services. Charles W. Ergen, CEO of DISH, owns 53.6% and Goldman Sachs Asset Management, L.P. and GS Investment Strategies, LLC (together, Goldman Sachs Asset Management), Delaware-based investment entities, own 13.4% of DISH Network.
Applicants state that Liberty-Bell Telecom provides resold services solely in territory served by the ILEC, Qwest. They state that Liberty-Bell Telecom is authorized to provide intrastate services in Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, and Washington and has also sought certification in Arizona, Idaho, Minnesota, and Wyoming. They further state that Liberty-Bell Telecom does not currently provide service in any of these states.
Interesting that DISH is getting into the telecom game, probably to resell DSL. Or could it be for a triple-play bundle?
In other Acquisition news....
"Suddenlink is acquiring NPG Cable, Inc., and its subsidiaries from News-Press Gazette Co. ...NPG's cable systems serve approximately 83,000 customers with operations in St. Joseph, Mo.; Mammoth Lakes, Calif.; and several, clustered Arizona communities, including Flagstaff and Sedona, Lake Havasu and Kingman," according to SuddenLinkFYI.
According to the Sun-Herald, "Layered Technologies, Inc. (Layered Tech), a leading worldwide provider of on-demand and cloud computing IT infrastructure, today announced the acquisition of GSI Hosting (GSI) as part of Layered Tech's accelerating growth within the enterprise managed services sector."
Sidera Networks, formerly RCN Metro before ABRY acquired them, acquired Cross Connect Solutions, Inc., a Philadelphia-based carrier-neutral colocation provider. Cross Connect add 28,000 square feet of colocation space to Sidera's more than 100,000 total square feet of colocation space. But more important, the data center is at 401 North Broad Street, the key telco hotel space serving Philadelphia - in the heart of the Sidera footprint. [pr]
And open-source giant, Red Hat jumps into the M&A fray by grabbing a PAAS company, "Makara, a developer of deployment and management solutions for applications in the cloud. Makara's technologies will accelerate the development of Red Hat's comprehensive Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution as part of its Cloud Foundations portfolio," according to
