So Much Going On

There is so much activity going on, I can’t keep up.
IN M&A:

• FPL got bought by Crown Castle
• Rumor that Windstream is looking to buy Earthlink 
• CenturyLink is buying Level3.
• CenturyLink just sold off its data center business that was a combo of Qwest Cyber Centers and SAVVIS to a group of PE firms for $2.15B in cash and C-Link keeps a minority stake worth $150M in the new company. CL bought Savvis for $2.5B in 2011.

In FCC news:
FCC set a new privacy policy for user data. ISPs have one year to adopt the new rules.

IN OTHER:
Interesting factoids:

• Windstream’s market capitalization is about $653 million.
• EarthLink is about $572 million.
• Windstream had $4.76 billion in long-term debt.
• Earthlink had $466 Million in debt.
• Windstream spun a lot of network assets off to CS&L and sold the data center biz to Tierpoint.
• Windstream has a bit over $5B in annual revenues; EarthLink just dropped below $1B.

Fiber vs Wireless

FTTH is expensive and many companies are looking at Licensed fixed wireless as well as 5G to solve these problems. (See HERE and Mobile eating world).

MVNO

Meanwhile Comcast and Charter (Charter owns Bright House and TWC now and is branded as Spectrum) are getting into the MVNO business. They will both rely heavily on their wi-fi network and the back-up will be VZW. VZW bought spectrum from SpectrumCo that was co-owned by the 4 MSOs mentioned here. That deal gave the MSOs the option for a good rate at MVNO, which they are now taking. The Timing is kind of awful. MVNOs are opening and closing as the price war between the Big 4 doesn’t leave much room for anyone else. (MVNO means that they are a cellular reseller.)