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Today's report from Web Editor
Susan Rush
• Is It Time To Vote?
• It's Pink Slip City At NorthPoint
• Ciena Gets A Boost On Wall Street
• Throw A Dinner Party Without The Dirty Dishes
• Broadband Briefs
• Next Week In Broadband
Is It Time To Vote? Just
as with the U.S. Presidential election, many are probably wondering when America
Online's planned purchase of Time
Warner will be completed. The answer could be soon, since the duo has
reportedly told the Federal Trade Commission
it will not put forth further concessions to win approval from regulators.
America Online did not return BroadbandWeek Direct's calls for
comment before deadline. The FTC is expected to vote on the $115.8 billion
merger next Wednesday or Thursday.
In other AOL-TW merger news, AT&T
Corp. is joining the band of companies and consumer interest groups
trying to block the deal. In a recent filing with the Federal
Communications Commission, the telecommunications giant said, "as
currently structured, the AOL-Time Warner merger disserves the public
interest, and it should not be approved." The Consumers Union expressed
its delight to have AT&T on its team.
Related Stories:
Time
Warner Inks EarthLink Deal, BroadbandWeek Direct, 11/20/00
AOL-TW:
The Vote Looms, BroadbandWeek Direct, 11/8/00
It's Pink Slip City At NorthPoint
Times are tough, especially if you work for a
CLEC providing DSL services. NorthPoint
Communications joins a growing list of providers to cut its staff in
order to reduce expenses. The company's stock took another hit today,
dropping 7.7 percent to 38 cents during early morning trading. It's
stock nearly bottomed out last week, falling almost 80 percent after Verizon
Communications decided to pull the plug on its $800 million investment
in the company.
NorthPoint plans to slash its workforce by 19
percent, leaving 248 employees jobless. All levels of employees will be cut,
with most reductions taking place at NorthPoint’s San Francisco and
Emeryville, Calif. locations. "As a result of Verizon’s notice of
termination, we must make some difficult decisions," explains
NorthPoint President and CEO Liz Fetter.
The problems occurring in the DSL industry right
now go beyond NorthPoint. "The CLECs are having problems because they
don't own their own lines, and it is really adding to their cost
structure," explains Mike Paxton, senior analyst for Cahners
In-Stat Group, a sister company to Broadband Week. "It's
just not a good business model to follow." Essentially CLECs are at the
mercy of the incumbent carriers, which are slashing prices and beefing up
services themselves to stay competitive.
Months before providers began slashing jobs and
looking for other ways to reduce operating costs,
Cahners In-Stat predicted that, Regional Bell Operating Companies would
eventually
emerge as the clear leader in the highly competitive DSL market. The
"DSL Service Providers and Their Rollouts" concluded that Baby
Bells have a strong existing customer and infrastructure base, as well as
the "financial muscle to stake their claim" in the DSL
marketplace.
Related Stories:
NorthPoint
Ponders Lawsuit, BroadbandWeek Direct, 12/1/00
NorthPoint's
Stock Tanks, BroadbandWeek Direct, 11/30/00
Baby
Bells In DSL Driver's Seat, BroadbandWeek Direct, 8/8/00
Ciena Gets A Boost On Wall Street
Optical gear maker Ciena
Corp.'s stock price jumped 12 percent to $107.38 this morning following
the announcement of the company's fourth quarter financial results. Ciena
reported revenue of $287.6 million for the quarter ending October 31, 2000,
compared to $141.4 million during the same period a year ago.
Pro forma net income was $41.3 million, or 14
cents per diluted share, up from $4.7 million during Q4 1999.
"We believe Ciena stands to be one of the
primary beneficiaries as service providers begin to shift spending away from
legacy solutions toward next generation, intelligent optical networking
solutions," said Patrick Nettles, Ciena's chairman and CEO, in a
prepared statement.
Business will be all about growth in fiscal 2001
for Ciena. The company expects its business to grow faster than the overall
market and has raised its revenue guidance bar for next year. Nettles
predicts revenue growth of 75 to 85 percent over posted 2000 numbers. The
bullish forecast is above analyst predictions of 60 to 65 percent growth.
Related Stories:
Optical:
Broadband's Red Hot Sector, Broadband Week, 11/00
Ciena
Posts $28.2 Million Net Income For Q3, BroadbandWeek Direct, 8/18/00
Throw A Dinner Party Without The
Dirty Dishes
Welcome to dinner, broadband style. Broadband
television production company ETVcentre.com
forges a partnership with streaming media specialist Madge.web to launch
four new 'made for the medium' online shows in the New Year.
Dinner Party will be the first show, slated to
hit the computer screen in January. Internet-based viewers will choose from
a selection of 24 character profiles to decide who will attend the Dinner
Party. Each week a party will be filmed, starring the selected characters,
to be streamed by Madge.web over the Internet in 10-minute episodes. The
show will be loosely scripted allowing an improvised approach by the acting
talents involved and will also include competitions, insights from behind
the scenes and recipe information, according to ETVcentre.com.
"Whether producers and broadcasters like it
or not, broadband will be available in more than a third of all households
by 2004," says Andy Bell, managing director of ETVcentre.com. "This
is going to drive unbelievable changes in the TV industry and we're
determined to be at the forefront of the revolution."
Dinner Party will
be the first show to appear on the broadband network, followed by Yobs In Space,
In The Living Room and Wigan.
Broadband Briefs:
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Verizon Communications plans to invest $4.7
million to expand and upgrade its telecommunications network in Lynn, Mass. The
project is expected to be completed by the end of next year.
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Microsoft Corp. begins
interactive-television trial with TV Cabo Portugal SA in Portugal. Commercial deployment of these TV services to TV
Cabo subscribers is expected next year.
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Interactive Enterprise joins
Cisco New World Ecosystem Partner Program. As a broadband access partner the
company will focus its efforts on broadband service and infrastructure enabling
solutions for MSOs.
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AT&T Broadband
launches its AT&T Road Runner high-speed Internet service in Western
Massachusetts and Maine. The deployment adds an additional 800,000 homes to
AT&T's New England footprint.
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Advanced Radio Telecom Corp.
signs service order agreements for its broadband wireless service with 20 new
customers in California, Washington and Texas. ART's service hit the market in
September of this year.
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Ciprico teams with Streaming21
Inc. to deliver integrated content delivery and storage solutions to
broadband service provides in the video-on-demand market. Under the terms of the
deal, S21 will integrate its scalable streaming media software with Ciprico's
NETarray storage solution.
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National Technical Systems Inc.
and Agilent Technologies join forces to
provide third-party cable television modem pre-certification and other related
testing services. The venture will enable NTS to add Data Over Cable Service
Interface Specification pre-certification to its testing portfolio.
Next Week In Broadband
- Conferences/Speeches:
Dec. 12-13: IP QoS: Moving Beyond 'Best Effort, Washington, DC; www.telestrategies.com
Dec. 12-14: Streaming Media West 2000, San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, Calif.;
www.streamingmedia.com
Dec. 14: Commissioner Gloria Tristani of the FCC will give the
keynote address at the Practising Law Institute's 18th Annual
Institute on Telecommunications Policy and Regulation at the Hilton
Washington & Towers, Washington, D.C., 9:45 a.m.; www.fcc.gov
- Upcoming Broadband Events:
Dec. 18-19: The 3G Wireless Seminar: Promises and Realities, Dallas, Texas;
www.alexanderresources.com/3G/index.html
Jan. 6-9, 2001: 2001 International CES, Las Vegas Convention
Center, Las Vegas, NV; www.cesweb.org
Jan. 14-17, 2001: IEC @ SUPERnet, Santa Clara Convention Center,
Santa Clara, Calif.; www.iec.org/events/2001/supernet/index.html
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