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Tunnel Vision?
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The train wreck and resulting chemical fire in
Baltimore's Howard Street tunnel on the evening of July 18th did more than
paralyze downtown Baltimore for several days. It also derailed Internet traffic
in the Washington-Baltimore area, along the East Coast, and, according to some
published reports, as far away as Seattle and Los Angeles.
--August 6, 2001
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Twisting Road to 3G Spectrum Goes Through Washington
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Third generation or 3G services have been touted as
the offerings that will change the wireless world. But lately, the "G" in 3G more
often than not has meant "gap," as the chasm between what the wireless industry
says it needs and what regulators and government officials are willing to give
continues to grow larger.
--August 6, 2001
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Deals Amidst the MTU Carnage
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Everest Broadband, a New Jersey-based competitive
service provider that arrived this year in the murky market to serve multi-tenant
unit buildings, reached out to Telseon last week in an attempt to expand its
network presence and add some new layers to its business model.
--August 6, 2001
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Good Will Lacking
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The numbers for goodwill writedowns in the
financial reports for the June quarter are nothing short of staggering, and
there could be more to come.
--August 6, 2001
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MFN Keeps On Ticking
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Metromedia Fiber Network (MFN) played right up to
the deadline for renewing its credit facility with Citicorp last week. Just in
the nick of time, the company stayed afloat by securing an extension.
--August 6, 2001
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HSA Mulls Charter Offer, Future
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Seizing an opportunity in a harsh broadband
access market, Charter Communications Inc. has made a $73 million initial
offer to acquire cable modem systems from struggling High Speed Access Corp.
--August 6, 2001
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Congress Resting Up For Spectrum Fray
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Congress will start pressuring the Pentagon soon
to ease its stiffening resistance to vacating the 1710-1850 MHz spectrum that
U.S. wireless companies covet for 3G services.
--August 6, 2001
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ADC Pares More To Cut Costs
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Broadband gear maker ADC is saying "goodbye" to
several more businesses that are the weakest links in its efforts to cut costs
and boost results in the current sluggish business climate.
--August 6, 2001
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Winstar Revamps, Rhythms Seeks Shelter
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Another week, another DLEC Chapter 11. As expected,
Rhythms NetConnections Inc. late last week sought bankruptcy court protection from
its creditors and indicated it will liquidate if it cannot get an acceptable bid to
keep it operating as a going concern.
--August 6, 2001
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AT&T Deal Door Stays Open
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AT&T Corp. may have shut the door on a
$52 billion bid from Comcast for its AT&T Broadband cable unit last
month, but it has by no means locked it.
--August 6, 2001
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Looking Up
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Sure, new broadband cable and DSL rollouts are
slowing even as subscriber fees are rising. But that isn't bad news for two
outfits looking to challenge the wired establishment with satellite-based
broadband Internet services.
--August 6, 2001
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GPRS Out of the Gate
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AT&T Wireless won the race to be the first to
the U.S. market with a next-generation broadband mobile wireless service, with
its launch of a general packet radio service (GPRS) network in Seattle.
--August 6, 2001
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XO Riding the Wavelength
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No competitive service provider has taken more
lumps from Wall Street and the media over the last six months than broadband
specialists XO Communications. Late last month, XO answered back.
--August 6, 2001
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VOD Shining Brightly in Cable Universe
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The planets are finally aligning around
video-on-demand services, which rapidly are becoming standard fare for more
and more cable operators as deployment and trials accelerate.
--August 6, 2001
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In the Business
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Cable operators often have been accused of
keeping service close to home, focusing on their highly penetrated residential
areas while bypassing business customers. But Cox Communications Inc. is
answering that charge with Cox Business Services, a growing subsidiary
literally in the business of enterprise voice, video and data services via
cable modem or direct fiber links.
--August 6, 2001
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Cox Wants Businesses that Suffer DSL Hell
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Cox Business Service is looking to snatch up business
customers cut off from DSL service during the ongoing CLEC market implosion with a
feisty ad campaign that hawks broadband services "without all of those pesky
bankruptcies."
--August 6, 2001
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Down But Not Out
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Perhaps reports of the death of the CLEC market
were a bit exaggerated. At least, that suddenly seems to be the view of many
CLEC customers, even as this year's Wall Street shakeout continues clouding
the public perception of that business.
--August 6, 2001
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Value VDSL?
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Next Level Communications Inc. is looking to
brighten the picture for its Very High Speed DSL product line with a new
upgrade that boosts capacity while cutting the price tag.
--August 6, 2001
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Rhythms Winding Down
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"Bring out your dead!" cries the death cart man in
"Monty Python and The Holy Grail." A citizen appears with someone over his shoulder
who keeps saying, "I am not dead!" "Yes you are!" the citizen says, and eventually
has the cart pusher whack the relative on the head to make sure. Rhythms
Netconnections is like that...
--August 6, 2001
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MTU Marriage
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Broadband access equipment maker Kenetec believes in the
potential of the MTU market space, so much so that it's one of a handful of companies
left with a business model devoted to it. Thanks to a new partnership, now Kenetec's
got some more company.
--August 6, 2001
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Push It Along
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When officials from Agilent Technologies and Agere
Systems went to work on a new uniform Multi-Source Agreement (MSA) for 10-Gigabit
Ethernet components earlier this year, they had no idea what kind of movement they
were starting.
--August 6, 2001
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Fiber Deal Close, What Next For Lucent?
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Lucent Technologies continued its tumultuous year with
another round of changes and alterations in late July. Now, industry watchers are
speculating whether or not the shrinking telecom equipment manufacturer will survive
the current turmoil.
--August 6, 2001
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The XML Sell
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Extensible Markup Language (XML) promises to cross
content boundaries, and is touted as the first true multimedia formatting language.
--August 6, 2001
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Bringing Networks Home
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Verizon Communications Inc. is expanding the
availability of its in-home broadband networking solutions package to
homebuilders, developers and new homebuyers in the greater Boston area as
well as central and southern New Jersey.
--August 6, 2001
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FCC Awards 2 GHz Licenses to Satellite Companies
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The government's recent award of new spectrum to
mobile satellite companies drew a crowd of players and created a cloud of
uncertainty over whether new broadband services may result from the licenses.
--August 6, 2001
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Shared Networks for 3G Coming Together
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European telecommunications companies, searching for a
way to deliver third-generation wireless services after going deeply into debt to buy
licenses, have found a friend in RegTP, the German regulatory agency.
--August 6, 2001
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Tuning In
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Concert and music promoter House of Blues
Entertainment Inc. is sounding its first interactive TV notes with the
development of a live, virtual music channel that could one day beam to
a TV near you.
--August 6, 2001
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Dire Education
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It's a case of lessons learned in a tough
Internet schoolyard. After more than a year in the streaming media school
of hard knocks, Webcast provider iBEAM Broadcasting Corp. looked close to
being dismissed in April for lack of tuition. But just in time it gained
a crucial funding sponsor and with a revised lesson plan it is now trying
to earn a degree of success.
--August 6, 2001
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DTV Chicken-and-Egg
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Sony and AOL Time Warner added another chapter to
the ongoing saga of digital TV in the United States by agreeing to license a
controversial encryption technology called "5C" for digital content transmission
over home and cable networks.
--August 6, 2001
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Companies Hitting Reverse to Address Stock Declines
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Given the dramatic decline in share prices during
recent months, it's little wonder that myriad companies from broadband ISP
Excite@Home to smaller players are looking at reverse stock splits as a possible
way to help avoid de-listing.
--August 6, 2001
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Teligent's Fate Murkier as IDT Negotiations Collapse
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Broadband wireless CLEC Teligent Inc., which is
attempting to reorganize under bankruptcy court protection from creditors,
continues operating while waiting to land a buyer for its assets, a process that
appeared to be going through a late-July meltdown.
--August 6, 2001
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Broadside:
Code Red for Corporate Investing
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Bill Menezes: One of the things I remember most
from my hiatus as an investment adviser is the notion that doctors and lawyers tend to
make the worst clients... That memory seems appropriate given what we've seen over the
past couple of weeks, in the form of the incredibly huge accounting writeoffs that the
leading lights of the communications business had to take during the second quarter.
--August 6, 2001
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Always On:
When the Chips are Down and Out
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Gary Arlen: While the Comcast-AT&T fandango is
being scrutinized for its Wall Street (financial) and Washington (antitrust)
implications, the process - if not the outcome - also will have a sizable impact in
Silicon Valley (components)...
--August 6, 2001
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Through the Pipe:
Operational Readiness
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Ernie Gallo: Including high-speed Internet service in
service offerings is a network marketing necessity, not a differentiator. No satellite,
cable TV, or public switched telephone network operator can hope to capture a workable
market share without it...
--August 6, 2001
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