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Century Link to buy Level3
CenturyLink to Buy Level 3 for $34 Billion in Cash, Stock
http://www.thewhir.com/web-hosting-news/centurylink-to-buy-level-3-for-34-billion-in-cash-stock
How do you think this will affect Level3's quality and pricing ?
It's particularly interesting for us since they, Level3, are one of our upstreams.
Let's discuss.
Comments
I'm thinking it won't make it any better...
I have a similar feeling.
How is Century Link ? They are mainly US focused provider, didn't had a chance to use them as a provider.
Anyone with first hand experience ?
I had them as my ISP for several years. No issues, but they would only do 10/1 in my neighborhood. Comcast was offering 50/10, so...of course, now Comcast is going to charge me another $50/mo for the 1TB data cap.
But this is all just residential, not business.
CenturyLink isn't all that bad on the carrier side, I've worked with them since the Qwest merger. They do have a very bad habit of farming first support out to completely useless foreign call centers, but the actual NOC is competent if you speak directly to them.
I've dealt with them since they bought Savvis, and didn't notice a difference when they took over, but that could be because they kept the same people on our account.
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With prices dropping so low, it makes sense that there will be consolidation like this. The market is getting too competitive.
Some interesting comments on Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12835826
Should be a good move if they replace the leadership of Level3. I'm of the opinion that they've been steadily decreasing in service quality for the last 2-3 years. Routers constantly under high loads, poor routing choices and failure to acknowledge them, etc.
I'm no upstream expert but they've been the headline for a lot of problems for me in the last few years, and not to/from any particular location.
I'm not at all permanently cynical of corporate America - but this acquisition (if approved) removes a little bit of competition, and one must only look at the telco industry in the U.S. to see what lack of competition does to service quality.
Wow....lot's of monopolies are forming through buyouts and mergers. Monsanto-Bayer, Timewarner-Charter.
Well it is current year.
Ah, I could tell so many stories about Centurylink but professionalism (yes, really) prevents me from doing so.
I agree the FCC may not allow the merger to go through if this is the case since it would create a monopoly and be illegal under us federal law.
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It's not a monopoly - they aren't the only carrier.
Honestly I thought this was going to go the other way.
Francisco
Unlikely. Level3 and Century Link together do not control more than 50% of the long distance market (AT&T + Verizon on the other hand...) and L3 has virtually no end user customers + singlehomed L3 in a L3 only DC is rare for them also (as these could try to force a price lock or similar due to no choice).
Some parts might be required to be spun out (certain cities with only Level3 and CL, if any) but the merger itself should go through fine, on a monetary scale it is also rather small (35 bil $ are nothing in high finance and telco biz is so 1999).
Reality does not matter when one has to parrot pre-chewed sound-bites because feelingz.
The FCC does not get a vote. You mean the DOJ.
Well...
http://www.telecomramblings.com/2012/02/ma-journal-centurylink-and-level-3/
That's from 2012 but it sounded like a serious concern then. But IANAATL.
I've never had a good experience dealing with Level3 sales department. Always such a challenge!
No experience with CenturyLink.
Har har har
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/11/02/level_3_dropped_service_to_eastern_us/
Seems to be resolved now though.
The fact it happened at all was a huge source of hilarity in the office today.