It’s time for another look at whatever happened this week that I might have missed or passed over the first time.
Covad completed its ‘intelligent network platform’ with the rollout of nationwide MPLS VPN services as well as QOS/COS capabilities. Since being taken private, Covad has been reinventing itself as something larger than the simple competitive, line-sharing DSL provider we all remember from the bubble days. Adding MPLS VPNs allows them to better address the SME space, which is an increasing area of focus for them. I wonder how their financials are coming along nowadays.
RCN Metro, the metro fiber division of RCN Business (NASDAQ:RCNI, news, filings), announced an interesting contract with Compliance, LP. Compliance is a legal staffing and project management firm, and their new project center in central Washington DC needed greater scale and flexibility for its bandwidth infrastructure. RCN will be their primary network services provider, and has built a unique secure pathway into the facility.
Optimum Lightpath won a contract with another New Jersey school district, this time in Denville. The new connectivity will save the district some $50K annually and more than triple their previous bandwidth. As in other such deals, they displaced the ILEC (Verizon). This sort of deal is becoming Lightpath’s bread and butter.
And finally, today Level 3 Communications (NYSE:LVLT, news, filings) extended its local markets initiative to southern Ohio, as had been anticipated. Specifically that means the company’s 400 miles of metro fiber and a couple hudred on-net buildings in Columbus, Dayton, and Cincinnati. Most of those assets came to the company with the ICG acquisition, which make it a nice separable piece. Actually, I had thought the assets up in Cleveland and Akron would be a part of this, but perhaps that will be part of a later northern Ohio initiative.
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Are the cities that lvlt has chosen for its local markets initiative in the same cities that twtc has significant presence in? Or are they cities that twtc does not have a significant presence in? It seems to me that if lvlt and twtc plan a merger at some point, that they would avoid duplicative market development efforts. I guess a follow-up to that question would be “are the buildings that lvlt fiber passes by pretty much the same as the twtc buildings? Is there a lot of overlap?
That would be quite a conspiracy theory, but it involves too many people for it to be kept quiet. I’m not sure of the details of the overlap, but it’s certainly quite complicated.
FWIW, while other mergers in the sector could be feasible, I can’t find a reasonable way right now to put together a TWTC/LVLT combination.
I don’t think it necessarily points to conspiracy or even justification for considering a merge or takeout. You may recall the trend during the late nineties that some incumbents and MFS (and others) were following in “co-carrier” arrangments. In the case of competitive carriers it often makes sense for them to complement one another for purposes of satisfying redundant, diverse paths.
Conspiracy theories? For many years now, I have had the good fortune of listening to, enjoying, and sometimes corresponding with Dr. Patrick Byrne, CEO of Overstock.com(OSTK), and a genius in his own right, so that, in matters of Wall Street minimally, I believe in “CONSPIRACIES!” 🙂