Well, it is conference month with the industry gathering at CTIA and VoiceCon (and other shows). And when we get together we tend to gossip. The latest rumors (some thanks to Telecom Ramblings) involve XO, TWTC, and Qwest.

Apparently, Qwest longhaul business - the original Qwest - is for sale, but who has that kind of money to buy it? Likely, a foreign carrier would make a play for it. But Telefonica has a deal with Level3; T-Systems (DT) has a network here that T-Mobile utilizes; NTT has the Verio network; Telia also has some fiber routes in the US. Sprint can't come up with the $2B or so for the acquisition. Maybe Orange (FT) can. But isn't Global Crossing a better bang for the buck for these same prospective buyers?

Now that XO has converted all of its debt to preferred shares for Carl Icahn, speculation is if they will buy something or get bought. Now that tw telecom has showed a profit, maybe they will take a swing. After all, twt has the most on-net buildings and the 2nd most route miles (next to L3). (Thanks to Rob Powell for the data).

Level3 just borrowed some money - $200M+. But that's just for operating expenses according to analysts. And what could you buy for $200M? And if you are Level3, why would you buy another company? You still haven't finished teh ongoing integration issues.