Cable giant Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA, news, filings) is apparently buying New Global Telecom (NGT). While there has been no formal announcement, there is a memo circulating at Comcast about the purchase. Terms are of course not available, but it’s safe to say that for Comcast this purchase is small relative to its overall bulk. However, strategically it could be of much greater importance, as they are not buying customers but rather technology.
NGT provides wholesale VoIP services targeted at business users. In the hands of Comcast, NGT is yet another arrow in its quiver that it will use to address the enterprise market. While Comcast’s consumer voice offerings are well developed, their business voice services are at an earlier stage. NGT’s hosted PBX and other business services will allow them to quickly offer a much more sophisticated set of next generation services to the small and medium enterprise customers acrosss their footprint.
In October, Comcast purchased Cimco, a Chicago CLEC serving some 2300 business customers. But that was clearly not the end of the story, and frankly neither is the purchase of NGT. As we saw in the consumer VoIP market, Comcast moves slowly but with great inertia – and in 2010 they seem to be ready to move.
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Categories: Cable · Mergers and Acquisitions · VoIP
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Never hurts when one of your board members is responsible for Comcast’s investments:
Louis A. Toth
Managing Director, Comcast Interactive Capital
Louis oversees the investing activities at CIC and is responsible for evaluating investment opportunities, coordinating due diligence efforts and assisting in the negotiation and structuring of financial terms for new portfolio investments. In addition, Louis works with the management of CIC portfolio companies on strategic, business development and operations issues. Previously, Louis worked in investment banking and at a venture capital firm focused on technology and communications services. Louis graduated with honors and holds a Master of Business Administration from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a Master of Arts in International Studies from the Joseph H. Lauder Institute of Management and International Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He also graduated from the Management & Technology Program at the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Science in Economics from The Wharton School and a Bachelor of Science in Materials Science & Engineering from the School of Engineering & Applied Science.
Louis is involved as a Director, Board Observer or adviser for BroadLogic Technologies, Cartiza, Cedar Point Communications, Jingle Networks, New Global Telecom, Ortiva Wireless, RGB Networks, StrataLight Communications, and ViTrue.
Interesting, I hadn’t noticed that connection.
is that a hint that others on that list might get taken out next???