Friday Roundup: Wheeler, Level 3, Lumos

Time for an end-of-week look at whatever I missed or didn’t get to the first time around:

So this Friday we got our first look at the likely next head of the FCC, and it turned out to be the guy on top of most of the lists (not mine of course). Nobody’s quite sure what to make of Tom Wheeler, and neither am I. Given his Beltway experience (lobbyist! gasp…), I doubt his confirmation hearings will succeed in doing more to dispel the fog. So we’ll just have to wait and see what he chooses to spend time on when he finally takes hold of the gavel in a month or two. Do they have a gavel at the FCC?  Whatever.

Level 3 won an expanded relationship with British Telecom. They’ve long been one of BT’s suppliers for US connectivity needs, but now they’re going to be supplying SIP for toll free access to BT’s conferencing services. BT will be migrating its existing TDM-based services onto the new platform, which could be an important boost to Level 3’s wholesale business – and it could use one.

And Lumos Networks (NASDAQ:LMOS, news, filings) continued to expand outward from its Appalachian base and onto the Atlantic Seaboard. They’ve now announced plans to build 100G connectivity down to Richmond from both Ashburn and Lynchburg. They plan further investments in the Richmond metro area as well. When Lumos split off from nTelos, I wasn’t sure how aggressive they were going to be in terms of geographic expansion. Perhaps they’ll take on North Carolina next?

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Categories: Fiber Networks · Government Regulations · VoIP