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from the more-fiber-to-help-your-comms-stay-'regular' dept.
CenturyLink is buying Level 3 Communications:
CenturyLink Inc. agreed to buy Level 3 Communications Inc. for about $34 billion in cash and stock, creating a more formidable competitor to AT&T Inc. in the market to handle heavy internet traffic for businesses. [...] The equity value of the deal, excluding debt, is about $24 billion. Both companies have struggled against larger competitors -- AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. -- in the business services market. Investors sent CenturyLink shares down the most in 3 1/2 years on concern the company is overpaying and piling on debt to acquire a company whose sales growth has stagnated in a hotly competitive market.
The deal will give CenturyLink another 200,000 miles of fiber:
"This transaction increases CenturyLink's network by 200,000 route miles of fiber, which includes 64,000 route miles in 350 metropolitan areas and 33,000 subsea route miles connecting multiple continents," CenturyLink said. "Accounting for those served by both companies, CenturyLink's on-net buildings are expected to increase by nearly 75 percent to approximately 75,000, including 10,000 buildings in EMEA and Latin America." Currently, CenturyLink says it operates a "250,000-route-mile US fiber network and a 300,000-route-mile international transport network." Besides Internet access, CenturyLink offers cloud and managed hosting services for enterprises.
Also at The Wall Street Journal .
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Tuesday November 01 2016, @05:57PM
The government already controls everything it wants. In the meantime, AT&T generates enough profit off your back for a $85 Billion takeover of another company, which is not even an order of magnitude above what the others are doing courtesy of their own gouging.
So you're being milked. And have no choice or control. And the government gets what it wants anyway (for a high cost). Why are you even talking about control? How much evidence of "we do what we want, because you have no choice or recourse" do you need?
Tell me how adding redundancy is going to be successful, when the rules are written by the big guys.
Either the big guys don't get to choose or merge (Euro-style), or you get to a duo/monopoly anyway, and you're better off if it's public and non-profit.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday November 01 2016, @06:50PM
$85 Billion takeover of another company,
You do understand that these are stock swap deals don't you?
With (Only) $7.2 billion of cash, and cash-like funds on hand, AT&T doesn’t have enough firepower to make a purchase of Time Warner with cash alone. In the wake of the DirecTV purchase (also done with stock swaps), and the $18 billion AT&T spent in the federal airwave auction last year, AT&T’s net debt was $120 billion at the end of June.
Its not subscriber money that is going to buy Time Warner, its the "perceived" value in the market of AT&T stock.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday November 01 2016, @07:16PM
Nevertheless, stock is an asset. It has monetary value.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday November 01 2016, @07:28PM
Well yes, it's not just cash. But how much does that value every single customer?
You wouldn't get to that number by selling $30/mo internet or $20/mo 4G/20GB cell service as they do in Europe.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 02 2016, @04:29AM
I pay $15/mo for ATT broadband and it's not slow either...