Level3 officially became CenturyLink last week. “CenturyLink has closed its massive $34 billion deal to buy Level(3) Communications.” Now the real work begins with integrating – Embarq, CenturyTel, Madison River, KMC, Qwest, US West, Savvis, tw telecom, Genuity, Wiltel, Global Crossing, Level3 – into a workable system. (Can you see me laughing as I type this?)
I’m certain she was told to say this but it still made me snort my coffee:
“”We really want to focus competing on a global scale with profitable revenue growth for us and our partners, with a strong customer service focus,” Lisa Miller, CenturyLink’s president of wholesale, indirect channels and alliances, told CRN.”
How will they go head to head against AT&T or Verizon? No cellular piece. They have a couple of Internet backbones, but what sane IT admin will want to deal with integration issues?
Plus why chase Fortune and Global 5000? Why not try to conquer the mid-market first? No one ever got fired for buying AT&T or Verizon (or IBM).
Most of the “new” reach of C-Link is the Level3 network. They are combining the partner programs. Why do they make it sound like partners couldn’t sell any of this before?
I dislike spin. I dislike when a company can’t be honest. It reflects on their leadership and that perhaps the leadership has no idea what it is facing.
Not one single tie-up in telecom has resulted in anything better. Frontier, CenturyLink-Savvis, C-Link-Qwest, Level3-circa-2006, Fairpoint, Spectrum (BHN-TWC-Charter).
Less choice, bigger mess, more headaches. I can hardly wait.
SELLECOM: 101 Ideas for Marketing in the Telecom Jungle. 
