Today's Top Stories CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL) could be a possible suitor for tw telecom (Nasdaq: TWTC), a profitable competitive provider serving the business services market which may be putting itself up for sale. What's prompted these rumors is a Denver Post article citing a report in DealReporter where unnamed sources said the two service providers have been talking about a deal for a number of weeks. Neither tw telecom nor CenturyLink would comment on this rumor, however. Over the past three years, CenturyLink has been aggressive on the acquisition front, acquiring not only Sprint's former wireline business unit Embarq, but also cloud and data center provider Savvis and Qwest Communications. Three elements make tw telecom a possible attractive target to CenturyLink, which became the third largest telco following AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) after purchasing Qwest Communications last year: a deep set of business customers, a large fiber footprint and profitability--unlike a number of other CLECs, tw telecom is actually profitable. The company has a broad market reach into 75 markets and over 28,000 fiber route miles--75 percent of which are in the metro. In addition, tw telecom has 16,000 on-net buildings connected to its fiber network, a factor that would immediately enable CenturyLink to expand the reach of its own growing Ethernet footprint and cloud services reach through its Savvis unit. Driven by sales of Ethernet and IP/VPN services, tw telecom reported that total revenues in Q2 2012 grew 1.6 percent sequentially over Q1 2012 and 7.7 percent year over year. Besides CenturyLink, the DealReporter report said Level 3, a service provider that completed an acquisition of the former Global Crossing, also expressed interest in tw telecom, but apparently did not agree with what the CLEC wanted for its business. For more:
- The Denver Post has this article
Special report: Wireline in the second quarter of 2012
Related articles:
tw telecom Q2 revenues rise 7.7% on strong Ethernet, IP VPN sales
tw telecom sets stage for network service automation
tw telecom serves up new Ethernet interconnection product
tw telecom Q1 2012 revenue grew 7.9% on Ethernet, IP/VPN sales Read more about: tw telecom
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MegaPath, a CLEC that's been aggressively expanding its wares through various acquisitions, on Wednesday put the finishing touches on its nationwide Ethernet over Copper (EoC) network build. Now available in the top 50 national U.S. markets, customers can use EoC to access MegaPath's Core MPLS network and Quality of Service (QoS) capabilities to ensure their applications get the necessary support. The service is currently available in 693 U.S.-based ILEC Central Offices around the country. In its most recent network buildout drive, it started offering the service in six new markets: Las Vegas, Richmond, Va., San Antonio, Hartford, Conn, and Jacksonville and Tampa, Fla. Brian Washburn, research director of network services for Current Analysis, told FierceTelecom in an interview that MegaPath's ability to reach its EoC buildout goal will bode well for it on both a retail and wholesale basis. "It's noteworthy that MegaPath ultimately hit 693 COs (a little more than its projected 680 COs for its EoC buildout)," he said. "We believe MegaPath now operates more Ethernet over copper nodes than any other U.S. provider (XO is probably next-largest as a national competitor serving EoC, though XO hasn't publicly released EoC counts lately). While EoC typically can't go head-to-head with fiber access, it's an alternative venue that takes advantage of the popularity of Ethernet access to IP services for businesses." Overall, MegaPath offers EoC on its network in the top 50 major markets such as Los Angeles, New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, Dallas, Miami and San Francisco, providing speeds up to 45 Mbps depending on available copper and plant conditions in the area where a particular business resides. While new technologies are enabling MegaPath and other competitors like XO Communications and Windstream to deliver up to even 100 Mbps over existing copper, the real sweet spot in terms of speed tends to come in the range from 3 to 10 Mbps and, on the higher end, 20 Mbps. EoC continues to be an attractive option for SMBs, where the choices are limited to purchasing bonded T1s, a costly and often unreliable method, or cable modem services. JDK Consulting, an IT and telecom consultant to doctors, attorneys and other small businesses, has been a strong advocate of MegaPath's EoC service.
John Kippen, JDK's CEO and president, said in an interview with FierceTelecom that he recommends EoC, especially for those customers that only need 10 to 20 Mbps, because it is more cost effective and reliable than other alternative access methods. "EoC is better than bonding T1s because when you bond T1s together, not only is it much more costly but if you have one T1 that's failing or having problems, it affects the performance of the entire circuit and brings the circuit down," he said. "If one of the pairs in the EoC circuit fail, all they lose is a percentage of the bandwidth." For more:
- see the release Special report: Wholesale provider leaders to watch in 2012 Download our eBook: Finding New Gold in Copper Related articles:
MegaPath among largest Ethernet over Copper players
MegaPath serves up set of new cloud hosted services
Dave Williams, MegaPath Wholesale
MegaPath gives businesses cloud-based access to Microsoft services Read more about: Ethernet over copper, MegaPath
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Small to medium business (SMB) customers will soon be able to search for telecom services much like searching for flights on Expedia.com, thanks to wiresurfer.com's launch of its new price comparison website on Tuesday. At the Coral Springs, Fla.-based company's site, SMBs will have a place where they can not only compare telephony and Internet service prices, but also see what promotional deals are available in the regions in which they operate. Fifteen service providers, including brand names such as AT&T (NYSE: T), Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA), CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL) and Windstream (Nasdaq: WIN), have already committed to offer their services on the wiresurfer.com site. SMBs can purchase an array of traditional wireline voice, wireless voice and data, VoIP and broadband services, including cable and DSL, collocation hosting, audio and web conferencing and cloud-based services. Jeff Kaufman, wiresurfer.com's co-founder and CEO, said the company will give SMBs, many of which lack an IT staff at all, a simpler and less time-consuming way to purchase telecom services so they can get back to conducting their core business processes. Right now, it could take an SMB up to three days to search various telecom provider websites and call each of them individually to see which one has the best price. "Nearly everyone has become familiar with online comparison shopping using sites like Orbitz or Travelzoo, but telecom never became part of that 21st century marketplace until now," Kaufman said in a release announcing the new service. "With wiresurfer, carriers promote their deals in a very user friendly format, allowing SMBs to avoid the hassle of keeping track of each carrier's bundled options and sales processes." Under the terms of an agreement wiresurfer.com has with its telecom provider members, the providers will pay wiresurfer.com 14 to 25 percent of every customer's phone bill throughout the life of their contract. Kaufman has high hopes for wiresurfer.com. He said in a Reuters article that the company would like to break even in about eight months and have over 16,000 customers in about 30 months. Wiresurfer has secured a $200,000 angel investment from Nantucket-based entrepreneur Alan Bankart and is working to get its first round of venture capital funding. Wiresurfer.com is not the only company to come up with a price comparison site for telecom services. In 2008, AT&T, Verizon and Qwest, now CenturyLink, launched Movearoo.com, a website targeting consumers with the message that switching phone services is easier after moving to a new city. Unlike wiresurfer.com, Movearoo.com only deals with the telcos, not cable operators. For more:
- see the release
- Reuters has this article Special report: Wireline in the second quarter of 2012 Related articles:
Telcos move in unison with Movearoo.com
AT&T leads U.S. Ethernet sales, Vertical Systems Group says
Verizon's Shammo wants more enterprise customers to migrate to IP services Read more about: Verizon
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XO on Wednesday signed an agreement to extend its new 100G network via Equinix's (Nasdaq: EQIX) International Business Exchange (IBX) data centers in the United States. Although XO and Equinix have been working with one another for a number of years, this new alliance will provide various benefits to their respective customers, including: capacity to public, hybrid and private cloud providers; a reduction in network latency; improvements to the user experience with high-speed content distribution; and access to business-grade Ethernet services. A key focus of this partnership is centered on assisting XO's wholesale service provider customers. XO's cable, wireless operator and telco customers will be able to get direct access to 100G services, which are already present in 47 of Equinix's data centers,. Along with its two main optical vendors--Nokia Siemens Networks and Ciena (Nasdaq: CIEN)--XO deployed the 100G service inside Equinix. Existing and new customers will be able to test the new 100G service via Equinix's Solution Validation Centers in major markets such as Silicon Valley, Calif., and Ashburn, Va., in addition to new centers it is building in both London and Singapore. Building this relationship is important for XO as it just launched its 100G network. Making its service available via Equinix could make it easier for its carrier customers that have existing connections into their facilities and need to get quick access to 100G wholesale services. The CLEC recently completed the buildout of one of the first nationwide 100G intercity and long-haul networks, one that includes a link between Equinix's data centers in Silicon Valley, Calif., and Washington, D.C. Later, it named Ciena as its optical supplier for its 100G metro and regional network plans. For more:
- see the release Download our eBook: The New Data Center Related articles:
Equinix sells off 16 data centers to investment group for $75M
XO incorporates Ciena into its 100G metro, regional network plans
XO Communications goes live with nationwide 100G network
Equinix increases its Brazil data center footprint Read more about: Xo Communications
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The EAGLE-Net Alliance (ENA), an "intergovernmental" cooperative building a middle mile network to deliver optical services to local government agencies, hospitals, libraries and schools, on Monday refuted arguments that it is overbuilding in markets where there's already a broadband service provider present. The cooperative said in an e-mail newsletter that it "is not competing against local service providers for business, residential or commercial customers," but added that "[w]e must compete fairly with other providers to enable broadband service options to governmental entities." A number of area cable operators and telcos, including Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) and CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL), said ENA's effort to sell services to anchor institutions is nothing more than a means to "cherry pick" their school and library customers. At issue is a $100.6 million Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) that ENA won from the U.S. Department of Commerce in 2010. To build the statewide fiber network, the alliance is working with local partners such as Zayo, a competitive dark fiber provider that is providing almost 700 route miles of fiber in both Colorado and Wyoming. Existing service providers said they don't think the government should fund service providers to overbuild their markets, but rather should focus their attention on markets that can't get access to any broadband service at all. ENA maintains that the BTOP grant has "a strict set of rules and regulations that guide how and where our network is constructed to avoid overbuilding" and its mission is to "create a statewide network that provides access where there is not adequate or affordable infrastructure."
One town that's been traditionally overlooked in the state's broadband race has been Silverton, Co. At issue is a $37 million contract mandating that Qwest--now CenturyLink--had to bring fiber-based connections to every county seat by the end of June 2005, but the service provider said it could not obtain the necessary rights of way to reach the mountain town. A judge in 2011 ruled that the service provider did not have to provide a 16-mile fiber network extension to the town. As an alternative, CenturyLink provided the town with a microwave relay service, which area businesses say struggles to keep up with basic activities like credit card transactions during the Fourth of July holiday weekend every year. Given its experience with CenturyLink, Silverton's town leaders were, not surprisingly, concerned EAGLE-Net would overlook them. EAGLE-Net maintains that they will eventually reach Silverton and other communities in the state. But after speaking with EAGLE-Net, representatives from the Silverton School District, San Juan County and the Town of Silverton said in a letter that despite having a number of logistical and technical issues to resolve, they are in favor of ENA's work.|
"[W]hile we are sure a myriad of unanswered questions and host of logistical and technical complications remain, we would like to continue to offer our unyielding support to Eagle Net in whatever form that may take as your organization continues in good faith to move forward with bringing expanded connectivity to our community and broader region," the community leaders wrote. For more:
- see the EAGLE-Net letter
- see the Silverton letter
- Broadcasting and Cable has this article Related articles:
CenturyLink wins battle against Silverton, CO over fiber network
Colorado town fights Qwest for fiber
Zayo adds 162 miles of fiber to EAGLE-Net's Colorado network footprint
Zayo lights up new fiber capacity for EAGLE-Net Alliance Read more about: CenturyLink, EAGLE-Net
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