In many ways, Wavecom was as big a competitor to the incumbent carrier in Hawaii as Oceanic TWC. A facilities-based CLEC, an ISP, a wholesaler and a Hosted PBX player. That's four areas where it was a thorn in HT's side.

Hawaiian Telcom (HT) is acquiring Wavecom Solutions Corporation for $13M.

Wavecom uses Alcatel-Lucent even for Hosted, which makes it look more like Oceanic TWC than HT, but HT is rolling out Hosted PBX and TWC is not.

HT is following the play book of other LEC's: buy a Hosted PBX shop to jump start your Hosted PBX sales division - in revenue, in culture, and in sales. One reason that Bell-Heads (anyone that has worked in the TDM space for a while) can't transition well to Hosted is because Bell-Heads think of everything in time division multi-plexing (TDM :) and replacement services. Net-Heads think about telecom as a component, as software, as a widget in the cloud. That is how the thinking needs to be.

We'll see how HT handles the acquisition. If they were smart, they wouold leave as a stand-alone for a while. Use it as a Sales SWAT Team not the short bus.

UPDATE: Reuters reminded me that Wavecom "services more than 1,700 customers statewide through a six-island subsea and terrestrial fiber network." So not just revenue but intra-state fiber. $13M is a steal.