PAETEC has a bid on the table from Windstream for a stock swap. The board of PAETEC will vote on it at the end of October. Some shareholders are so not happy with the bid value that lawyers and analysts have been hired to evaluate the deal.

Meanwhile CNBC reports that Level3 will be putting in a competing bid for PAETEC despite the fact that L3 is currently in the process of acquiring Global Crossing. (Congrats to Mike Jerich on being named head of channel for GC/L3.)

Other sources have said that EarthLink was actually a higher bidder. Hmmm.

It will be interesting to see what happens here, since PAETEC is large enough to have a serious impact on any winner - revenue wise.