CenturyLink To Buy Level 3 For $34 Billion, Create a More Formidable Competitor To AT&T (bloomberg.com)

In what is seen as a move to build a more formidable competitor to AT&T, rival CenturyLink today announced it is buying Level 3 Communications for about $34 billion in cash and stock. From a report on Bloomberg: Both companies have amassed giant networks to haul internet traffic through deals over the years. Level 3 is one of the largest providers used by internet services including Netflix and Google to route traffic across the web, operations that would bolster CenturyLink's core offerings to businesses. Level 3 was the second-biggest U.S. provider of ethernet services -- running high-bandwidth internet connections for companies -- in the first half of this year, trailing only AT&T, according to Vertical Systems Group. CenturyLink was fifth on the list.

Comments

Re:Ugh, time to start shopping for a new ISP

[Shatrat]

Honestly, you probably don't have the redundancy you think you do. I see this crap all the time from the other side. Some hospital or bank orders two connections from Telco A and Telco B, and Telco B turns around and buys the local access from Telco A. Even if the local loops are different facilities, it's almost certain the same long haul fiber is being used. You'd get better reliability if you ordered diverse service from Telco A, then they would know and be able to control both paths.

Re:Ugh, time to start shopping for a new ISP

[Shatrat]

As someone who has priced and engineered these services from the carrier side, what you have to do is request maps. If it's a layer 3 service you also need to make sure the two terminating routers are fed diversely. It's pretty common to be able to get a Google Earth KMZ file of the physical path, but expect to pay much more because last mile diversity usually requires construction.