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

We need more competition, not less.

[Anonymous Coward]

The government needs to block this merger as well as the AT&T/TW merger. We need to have more choices when it comes to internet providers, not fewer. Pretty soon there will be a single source for the internet and they'll give you a 'bend over, take it or leave it' choice and that's all.

Re:We need more competition, not less.

[EvilSS]

The government needs to block this merger as well as the AT&T/TW merger. We need to have more choices when it comes to internet providers, not fewer. Pretty soon there will be a single source for the internet and they'll give you a 'bend over, take it or leave it' choice and that's all.

AT&T is not buying Time Warner Cable (Charter already did that). Time Warner Cable (TWC) is not a part of Time Warner anymore (it was spun out years ago). AT&T is trying to buy Time Warner Inc (TWI), the media company (Warner Brothers Studios, Turner broadcasting, HBO, etc). Also should be noted that this also does not involve Time, inc., the publishing company (Time magazine, etc) which was also spun off years ago.

Now I personally believe there are still valid reasons to not allow it, but let's stop getting confused over what company is actually being bought and what they do.