Today's Top Stories Vivendi has made it official that it will separate its telecom unit from its growing media and content activities and has named Vincent Bollore as its new chairman. Bollore, who already serves as vice chair of the company's supervisory board and is a 5 percent shareholder, will take over the post from current chairman Jean-Rene Fourtou when it completes its demerger in the second half of next year. According to a report in Reuters citing an article from Le Monde, Fourtou fought with Bollore over his ambition to have more input in the company's future. Fourtou added that he expected Bollore could replace him as chairman of the media division after the company realignment is complete. The company has tapped Hearst Magazines' head of media and content activities Arnaud de Puyfontaine to run Vivendi's remaining businesses, while Jean-Yves Charlier will continue in his role as chairman and CEO of SFR. The company said that the demerger plan will take the form of a distribution of shares in French telecom operator SFR to Vivendi shareholders. It added that a stock listing for SFR would offer Vivendi shareholder the opportunity to invest in two separate vehicles, valued according to the specifics of their respective sectors. "It would offer them the opportunity to invest in two separate vehicles listed on the stock market and valued according to the specifics of their respective sectors," Vivendi said in a statement. However, Vivendi did not reveal what it would do with GVT, its Brazilian telecom subsidiary. This demerger is part of the company's broader realignment to reduce debt and focus its attention on media, including consuming digital media in music and video. In July, Vivendi announced it would sell its 53 percent stake in Maroc Telecom and a deal to sell most of its 61 percent stake in video game firm Activision Blizzard. Vivendi said that it would present the demerger plan to the regulators for approval and then seek shareholder approval at their next annual meeting next June. For more:
- Reuters has this article
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XO has appointed 30-year telecom industry veteran Christopher Ancell as its new CEO, giving the company a permanent replacement to Carl Grivner, who left in April 2011.  | | Ancell (Source: CenturyLink) | Set to join the company on Dec. 2, Ancell comes to XO from CoreSite Realty Corp. where he served as that company's senior VP of sales and sales engineering.
Earlier, he spent 12 years serving in a number of leadership roles at both CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL) and Qwest, including serving as the president of CenturyLink's business markets organization and executive vice president of Qwest's business markets organization.
His experience in running business service divisions at CenturyLink and Qwest will come in handy at XO, which has been growing its presence in larger business accounts and increasing its reach into other countries, including Canada. Ancell will take over the CEO role from Laura Thomas, who will remain with company and return to her role as chief financial officer. For more:
- see the release Related articles:
XO CEO Carl Grivner resigns from company
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The global IP router and switching market may have suffered a near-term setback as revenues dropped 10 percent sequentially, but vendors are expected to see improvement in the upcoming fourth quarter, according to Infonetics Research.  Overall, the segment totaled $3.6 billion, up 7 percent year-over-year. Infonetics has forecast that the market will grow at a 7 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2012 to 2017, when it will reach $20.2 billion.
Michael Howard, principal analyst for carrier networks and co-founder of Infonetics, said that the sequential dip in revenues was mainly due to seasonality and that the sector improved over Q2 2012. "The third quarter is normally slow for the carrier router/switch market, so a 10 percent sequential drop isn't overwhelmingly bad, especially with the expectation of a good 4Q13 and an improving year-over-year outlook," he said. "All three main IP router/switch categories--edge routers, core routers, and carrier Ethernet switches (CES)--are up from a year ago." While Huawei and ZTE both reported that their routing revenues in Asia Pacific declined during the quarter, Infonetics said it expects that they will both recover in Q4 2013. Likewise in Europe and EMEA, the segment did decline 10 percent, but the research firm expects that a number of the largest providers are "expected to carry out a decent budget flush in the 4th quarter." From a vendor perspective, Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) continued to hold onto its first place lead with 38 percent market share followed by Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) and Juniper Networks (NYSE: JNPR). One of the notable moves was Huawei, which dropped to the number 4 spot on Infonetics' Q3 2013 global router/Carrier Ethernet Switch revenue share Leaderboard. All three of the top routing and switching vendors saw gains in the most recent quarter. Cisco said in its fiscal Q1 2014 period that switching sales rose 3 percent to $3.75 billion as it saw an increase in the Americas and EMEA regions, while Alcatel-Lucent's IP routing division rose 7 percent year-over-year to $789.2 million. Due to successive record quarters of growth for its MX platform, Juniper reported that routing revenue was $609 million, up 5 percent sequentially. For more:
- see the release Related articles:
Juniper Networks to cut 280 jobs despite Q3 revenue rise of 6 percent to $1.2B
Alcatel-Lucent's Q3 IP revenues jump 7 percent to $789.2M
Cisco's switching sales grow to $3.75B, but net revenue drop, forecast raise concerns Read more about: Cisco
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AT&T (NYSE: T) is giving more businesses in the St. Louis area the opportunity to access higher speed services such as Ethernet by extending their fiber network to over 200 multi-tenant buildings. Through this expansion, the telco is making its suite of Ethernet and IP/VPN services available to over 5,000 business customer locations. These fiber deployments also provide a few side benefits to the building owners. By having AT&T install fiber, they make their location more appealing to potential clients. There's also minimal disruption when new customers are added because the fiber-based electronic equipment that's installed can serve multiple tenants. As part of the telco's Project VIP investment plan, it is deploying its fiber network to an additional 1 million business customer locations in its wireline service area by the end of 2015. In Missouri, AT&T has allocated $250 million to expand its on-net fiber connections to businesses and the reach of U-verse to more consumers. The telco has been aggressively lighting up new multi-tenant buildings in multiple states as part of its fiber to the building (FTTB) program. In addition to St. Louis, AT&T equipped buildings with fiber in other parts of its territory, including Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, San Francisco, and Silicon Valley. For more:
- see the release Special report: AT&T's $14B Project VIP: breaking out the business service, U-verse numbers
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AT&T equips 230 MDUs with fiber in Nevada and Silicon Valley
AT&T U-verse revenues rise 28 percent to $3.1B, subscribers top 10 million
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AT&T lights 93 North Carolina buildings with fiber as part of Project VIP initiative Read more about: AT&T
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TDS Telecom (NYSE: TDS) is putting broadband into more rural customer's hands by completing part of its ARRA-funded broadband Internet project in Paonia, Colo. Set to be completed by January, this network build will provide broadband services to about 540 area residents. For this project, TDS subsidiary Delta County Tele-Comm, Inc., installed about 12 miles of fiber cabling and 12 cabinets, which will house necessary broadband loop carrier (BLC) devices to deliver services to residents. Similar to other areas where it has gotten American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding, the telco said it will inform residents when service is available. Out of the telcos that applied ARRA grants, TDS won 44 projects, including this one in Colorado. TDS has completed nine other ARRA projects in Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, and New York. It is also in the process of completing a project in Alabama. For more:
- see the release Related articles:
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TDS Telecom's Q3 revenues rise to $234.5M on gains in IPTV, managed services
TDS Telecom extends broadband to 600 more homes in Indiana Read more about: Broadband, Tds Telecom
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