Month: August 2017
AT&T, Verizon, Spectrum Enterprise lead in fiber lit business connections; M&A in 2017
Vertical Systems Group (VSG) ranked the leading providers of on-net fiber business connections as of the end of 2016. The research group said that retail and wholesale fiber providers with 10,000 or more on-net fiber-lit commercial buildings in the U.S. qualify for this new benchmark.
VSG’s 2016 U.S. Fiber Lit Buildings LEADERBOARD list includes a mixture of traditional telcos, cable providers and a competitive carrier: AT&T, Verizon, Spectrum Enterprise were the top three followed by CenturyLink, Comcast, Level 3, Cox, Lightower Fiber Networks, Zayo, Altice USA and Frontier.
The Challenge Tier of fiber providers includes companies with lit fiber connections to between 2,000 and 9,999 U.S. commercial buildings. Seventeen companies qualified for the 2016 Fiber Lit Buildings Challenge Tier as follows (in alphabetical order): Cincinnati Bell, Cleareon, Cogent, Consolidated Communications, Electric Lightwave, Fairpoint, FiberLight, FiberNet Direct, FirstLight, IFN, Lumos, Southern Light, Sunesys, Unite Private Networks, Uniti Fiber, Windstream and XO.
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Rosemary Cochran, principal at Vertical Systems Group, said the criteria for the leader board list was for network service providers to have fiber installed and fiber transport equipment ready to serve business customers.
“This is commercial buildings and data centers that have fiber in place and there is active service equipment that enables provisioning of commercial services,” Cochran said. “We’re not counting residential fiber or standalone cell towers.”
Cochran added that VSG is not counting near-net buildings where service providers may be passing buildings with fiber but have not connected them yet. “It is either lit or not lit,” she said.
“On-net fiber lit buildings are valued strategic assets that give retail and wholesale providers a competitive edge in profitably delivering services to business customers. A major benefit of a fiber lit building is ready connectivity with provisioning through service orchestration, without the construction cost and extensive lead time required to light a building,” Cochran added.
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Acquisitions of Fiber Providers happening this year:
“These dynamics are driving this year’s acquisitions among fiber providers that will significantly impact the U.S. fiber landscape. Eighteen of the twenty-eight Fiber LEADERBOARD and Challenge Tier companies have fiber-related transactions just completed or pending.”
One of the largest out of this group is CenturyLink’s pending deal for Level 3, one that will enhance the telco’s on-net fiber footprint.
CenturyLink’s Level 3 acquisition will increase its reach by nearly 75% to approximately 75,000, including 10,000 buildings in EMEA and Latin America, giving the telco a larger footprint to deliver Ethernet and software-defined services.
Some of the other acquisitions that will alter the on-net fiber profile will be Verizon’s recently completed purchase of XO Communications and Crown Castle’s pending acquisition of Lightower.
By purchasing XO, Verizon gained metro fiber networks in 40 major U.S. markets with over 4,000 on-net buildings and 1.2 million fiber miles.
Cochran said that since a number of these deals have not been completed it remains unclear as to what effect they will have.
Crown Castle, which will gain an additional 22,000 buildings, stands out from the crowd since the service provider has been operating the fiber providers it has bought as separate companies.
However, other pending acquisitions being made by Consolidated Communications, Cincinnati Bell and newer players like Uniti Fiber will have an effect.
Consolidated Communications, which will announce its second-quarter earnings tomorrow, recently completed its acquisition of FairPoint. By acquiring FairPoint, Consolidated immediately established itself as the ninth largest fiber player with a presence in 24 states and 8,000 on-net buildings. This greater density will enable Consolidated to pursue more dark fiber and lit Ethernet service opportunities with a larger mix of business and wholesale customers.
“Out of the companies on the leader board, 18 of them either already completed acquisitions or some are pending,” Cochran said. “Because a lot of deals happened in July with some that are pending such CenturyLink/Level 3, they are not reflected here.”
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Strategic importance of Fiber Assets to deliver business services:
Regardless of when these deals are completed, Cochran added that they show how having a large arsenal of fiber is important to compete for business services.
“There’s a lot that happened in the first half of this year and that’s going to shake things up,” Cochran said. “Just the fact that you have more than half of these companies involved in some kind of transaction shows the value of fiber.”
On the fiber leaderboard, 7 service providers have an ongoing spot on VSG’s Carrier Ethernet Leaderboard report. These providers include: AT&T, Verizon,Spectrum Enterprise, CenturyLink, Comcast, Level 3, and Cox.
Cochran noted that the presence of fiber has coincided with the growth of Ethernet in the domestic U.S. market.
“Fiber-based Ethernet is the most widely deployed technology,” Cochran said. “As those upgrades take place, one of the drivers is trying to get more bandwidth so there’s a correlation between higher bandwidth services and having that fiber in the building.”
“Wholesale services are also a big driver, which becomes a question of service provisioning. The work that’s being done at the MEF on inter-carrier provisioning and service orchestration across carriers to automate it with standard APIs would help to accelerate new services,” she added.
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Other Fiber Providers:
All other fiber providers with fewer than 2,000 U.S. commercial fiber lit buildings are in the Market Players tier. The 2016 Market Players tier includes more than two hundred metro, regional and other fiber providers, including the following companies (in alphabetical order): Alpheus, Axia, Birch, C Spire, Centracom, Conterra, DQE Communications, EarthLink Business, Fatbeam, Global Capacity, GTT, Hawaiian Telecom, Hibernia, Hunter Communications, Independents Fiber Network, Infostructure, Logix Communications, LS Networks, Mediacom, Monmouth Telecom, Orca Communications, Pilot Fiber, PS Lightwave, Shentel, Silver Star Telecom, Sovernet, Spirit/Palmettonet, Syringa, TDS Telecom, TPX Communications, U.S. Signal, Veracity, Wilcon, WOW and others.
References:
https://www.verticalsystems.com/vsglb/u-s-fiber-lit-buildings-leaderboard/
Comment & Analysis of Century Link’s 2nd Quarter results
broadband units. Consumer legacy revenue declined 8.8% Y/Y – lower access lines.
in employee-related expenses.
“We are confident our continued investment in high-quality, high-bandwidth broadband network infrastructure positions Century Link well for long-term growth,” said Glen F. Post, III, Century Link chief executive officer and president.
“Enterprise demand for high-bandwidth data services remains strong and, while consumer broadband units were weaker than expected, we are encouraged by the higher-value customers our improved offerings are attracting. We accelerated our capital investment in high-bandwidth services and broadband infrastructure during the second quarter, which we believe better positions us to increase revenues in the second half of 2017 and beyond. We anticipate second half and full year 2017 capital expenditures of approximately $1 billion and $2.6 billion, respectively.
“We achieved our expected adjusted EBITDA for the quarter as our employees did a great job managing costs, while core revenues were below our expectations primarily due to the decline in legacy revenues and the decline in broadband units being higher than anticipated. We continue to make good progress in obtaining the necessary approvals for the pending Level 3 acquisition, having received clearance in 23 of 25 required states and territories. Integration planning is progressing well and we continue to anticipate completing the acquisition by the end of September 2017. We remain excited about the value we believe this transaction will create for our customers, our shareholders and our employees,” concluded Mr. Post.
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Century Link’s presentation – 2ndQ 2017 Highlights & Trends:
1. Strategic services:
◦ Enterprise high-bandwidth data – solid growth in MPLS revenue offset by decline in Ethernet revenue; grew 5% Y/Y on a normalized basis
◦ IT & Managed services – continued growth in IT Services along with stabilization of managed hosting revenue
◦ Enterprise other strategic – ~$100 million Y/Y and Q/Q decline due to Colo-cation sale
◦ Consumer broadband – fewer subscribers Y/Y
◦ Consumer video – impact of satellite video contract restructuring
2. Acquisition of Level 3 Communications:
◦ Continued good progress in obtaining necessary approvals; received shareholder
approval and regulatory approvals/clearances in 23 states or territories, with 2 states
remaining
◦ Integration planning process continues to go well; remain confident with cash synergy target of $975 million
◦ Named combined company senior leadership team, effective at close; overall
organization design progressing well
◦ Continue to anticipate closing by end of September 2017
Forward Guidance:
Based on first half 2017 results and current expectations for the remainder of the year, Century Link anticipates coming in slightly below its full-year 2017 revenue and adjusted diluted EPS guidance, primarily driven by higher legacy revenue declines and lower consumer broadband revenue growth than anticipated. The company continues to expect adjusted EBITDA and adjusted free cash flow to be near the lower end of prior guidance.
Century Link is not providing updated guidance ranges for full-year 2017 due to the pending acquisition of Level 3, currently anticipated to be completed by the end of third quarter of 2017, and the expected consolidation of results for the combined companies in fourth quarter 2017.
Earnings Call:
The call will be accessible for replay through August 9, 2017, by dialing 855-859-2056. Investors can also listen to Century Link’s earnings conference call and webcast replay by accessing the Investor Relations portion of the company’s website at www.centurylink.com through August 24, 2017. Here are a few highlights:
First, we continue to outperform MPLS market growth projections forecasted by leading industry analysts. In second quarter, we had nearly 2,000 MPLS customers. This performance was driven in particular by our SMB customers, where we are seeing improved install intervals of nearly 20%, which should help accelerate our revenue recognition as we move into the third and fourth quarters of this year. Next, we launched a number of new products and – we’ve launched a number of new products in the past few months including our CenturyLink Ethernet service.
We’ve also had three simplified bundles of SD-WAN plus network packages. We rolled out a competitively priced cloud-enabled small business VoIP offering. And we rolled out a new comprehensive managed Enterprise offering that is an end-to-end solution that includes WiFi management, network management, video surveillance, security and mobility management, all from a single interface. Also we have increased focus on customer retention and we are seeing lower credits and adjustments as a result.
In addition, CenturyLink continues to be one of the leaders in network virtualization through the deployment of software-defined networking and network virtualization capabilities. Based on initial results, we expect these services to create significant value in the months ahead. Also the continuous onslaught of new security threats, such as WannaCry has brought greater interest in and sales of our strong network and cyber security capabilities, as we believe CenturyLink is growing in recognition as a leading provider of security services that are so important to our Enterprise customers.
And lastly, based on third-party research support, U.S. Enterprise high-bandwidth data services are forecast to grow at mid-single-digit compounded annual growth rates through 2021, and U.S. Enterprise Managed Network Services are forecast to grow at mid to upper single-digit compounded annual growth rates through 2021. Now this forecast gives even more confidence in the opportunity to continue to grow Enterprise business in the months ahead.
Second, our IT services revenue, which is primarily driven by IT consulting, cyber security, IT service management and big data and analytics, is growing. And our managed hosting business also showed a solid turnaround this quarter. The team overcame the market confusion and sales disruption created by the colocation sale and grew cloud revenue, especially driven or aided by our Cloud Application Manager suite.
Next as expected, we had a seasonally challenging quarter from consumer broadband subscribers approximately 65,000 residential subscriber loss was higher than anticipated. This was driven to a great degree of our stronger cable competition, particularly 1 gig offerings in some of our key markets, coupled with aggressive pricing. Over the past year, we have made a pivot towards higher-quality, more profitable consumer broadband sales by removing several low-priced promotional offers and increased credit standards.
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References:
http://ir.centurylink.com/Cache/1500102071.PDF?O=PDF&T=&Y=&D=&FID=1500102071&iid=4057179
http://ir.centurylink.com/Cache/1500102077.PDF?O=PDF&T=&Y=&D=&FID=1500102077&iid=4057179
http://services.choruscall.com/links/ctl170802.html
http://www.centurylink.com/business/enterprise/cloud/public-cloud.html
https://techblog.comsoc.org/2017/05/24/centurylinklevel-3-says-its-fiber-assets-will-attract-smbs/
J.D. Power: SMB a Growth Opportunity; Telecom ARPU Falling in Every Region
Comment & Analysis of Century Link’s 2nd Quarter results
broadband units. Consumer legacy revenue declined 8.8% Y/Y – lower access lines.
in employee-related expenses.
“We are confident our continued investment in high-quality, high-bandwidth broadband network infrastructure positions Century Link well for long-term growth,” said Glen F. Post, III, Century Link chief executive officer and president.
“Enterprise demand for high-bandwidth data services remains strong and, while consumer broadband units were weaker than expected, we are encouraged by the higher-value customers our improved offerings are attracting. We accelerated our capital investment in high-bandwidth services and broadband infrastructure during the second quarter, which we believe better positions us to increase revenues in the second half of 2017 and beyond. We anticipate second half and full year 2017 capital expenditures of approximately $1 billion and $2.6 billion, respectively.
“We achieved our expected adjusted EBITDA for the quarter as our employees did a great job managing costs, while core revenues were below our expectations primarily due to the decline in legacy revenues and the decline in broadband units being higher than anticipated. We continue to make good progress in obtaining the necessary approvals for the pending Level 3 acquisition, having received clearance in 23 of 25 required states and territories. Integration planning is progressing well and we continue to anticipate completing the acquisition by the end of September 2017. We remain excited about the value we believe this transaction will create for our customers, our shareholders and our employees,” concluded Mr. Post.
……………………………………………………………………………………….
Century Link’s presentation – 2ndQ 2017 Highlights & Trends:
1. Strategic services:
◦ Enterprise high-bandwidth data – solid growth in MPLS revenue offset by decline in Ethernet revenue; grew 5% Y/Y on a normalized basis
◦ IT & Managed services – continued growth in IT Services along with stabilization of managed hosting revenue
◦ Enterprise other strategic – ~$100 million Y/Y and Q/Q decline due to Colo-cation sale
◦ Consumer broadband – fewer subscribers Y/Y
◦ Consumer video – impact of satellite video contract restructuring
2. Acquisition of Level 3 Communications:
◦ Continued good progress in obtaining necessary approvals; received shareholder
approval and regulatory approvals/clearances in 23 states or territories, with 2 states
remaining
◦ Integration planning process continues to go well; remain confident with cash synergy target of $975 million
◦ Named combined company senior leadership team, effective at close; overall
organization design progressing well
◦ Continue to anticipate closing by end of September 2017
Forward Guidance:
Based on first half 2017 results and current expectations for the remainder of the year, Century Link anticipates coming in slightly below its full-year 2017 revenue and adjusted diluted EPS guidance, primarily driven by higher legacy revenue declines and lower consumer broadband revenue growth than anticipated. The company continues to expect adjusted EBITDA and adjusted free cash flow to be near the lower end of prior guidance.
Century Link is not providing updated guidance ranges for full-year 2017 due to the pending acquisition of Level 3, currently anticipated to be completed by the end of third quarter of 2017, and the expected consolidation of results for the combined companies in fourth quarter 2017.
Earnings Call:
The call will be accessible for replay through August 9, 2017, by dialing 855-859-2056. Investors can also listen to Century Link’s earnings conference call and webcast replay by accessing the Investor Relations portion of the company’s website at www.centurylink.com through August 24, 2017. Here are a few highlights:
First, we continue to outperform MPLS market growth projections forecasted by leading industry analysts. In second quarter, we had nearly 2,000 MPLS customers. This performance was driven in particular by our SMB customers, where we are seeing improved install intervals of nearly 20%, which should help accelerate our revenue recognition as we move into the third and fourth quarters of this year. Next, we launched a number of new products and – we’ve launched a number of new products in the past few months including our CenturyLink Ethernet service.
We’ve also had three simplified bundles of SD-WAN plus network packages. We rolled out a competitively priced cloud-enabled small business VoIP offering. And we rolled out a new comprehensive managed Enterprise offering that is an end-to-end solution that includes WiFi management, network management, video surveillance, security and mobility management, all from a single interface. Also we have increased focus on customer retention and we are seeing lower credits and adjustments as a result.
In addition, CenturyLink continues to be one of the leaders in network virtualization through the deployment of software-defined networking and network virtualization capabilities. Based on initial results, we expect these services to create significant value in the months ahead. Also the continuous onslaught of new security threats, such as WannaCry has brought greater interest in and sales of our strong network and cyber security capabilities, as we believe CenturyLink is growing in recognition as a leading provider of security services that are so important to our Enterprise customers.
And lastly, based on third-party research support, U.S. Enterprise high-bandwidth data services are forecast to grow at mid-single-digit compounded annual growth rates through 2021, and U.S. Enterprise Managed Network Services are forecast to grow at mid to upper single-digit compounded annual growth rates through 2021. Now this forecast gives even more confidence in the opportunity to continue to grow Enterprise business in the months ahead.
Second, our IT services revenue, which is primarily driven by IT consulting, cyber security, IT service management and big data and analytics, is growing. And our managed hosting business also showed a solid turnaround this quarter. The team overcame the market confusion and sales disruption created by the colocation sale and grew cloud revenue, especially driven or aided by our Cloud Application Manager suite.
Next as expected, we had a seasonally challenging quarter from consumer broadband subscribers approximately 65,000 residential subscriber loss was higher than anticipated. This was driven to a great degree of our stronger cable competition, particularly 1 gig offerings in some of our key markets, coupled with aggressive pricing. Over the past year, we have made a pivot towards higher-quality, more profitable consumer broadband sales by removing several low-priced promotional offers and increased credit standards.
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References:
http://ir.centurylink.com/Cache/1500102071.PDF?O=PDF&T=&Y=&D=&FID=1500102071&iid=4057179
http://ir.centurylink.com/Cache/1500102077.PDF?O=PDF&T=&Y=&D=&FID=1500102077&iid=4057179
http://services.choruscall.com/links/ctl170802.html
http://www.centurylink.com/business/enterprise/cloud/public-cloud.html
https://techblog.comsoc.org/2017/05/24/centurylinklevel-3-says-its-fiber-assets-will-attract-smbs/
J.D. Power: SMB a Growth Opportunity; Telecom ARPU Falling in Every Region
Sprint Reports 1st Net Income in 3 years; CEO Says Merger Decision Coming Soon
As we’ve previously reported, Sprint is exploring various M &A options, including a merger with rival wireless carrier T-Mobile US Inc as well as a tie-up with cableco/ MSO Charter Communications Inc. Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp owns approximately 80% of the company.
“We’ve had sufficient conversations with several parties and soon we’re going to start making decisions,” Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure said on a conference call Tuesday (see Reference 1. below for the replay) after the company reported results for the three months ending June 30. The company achieved net income of $206 million, compared to a loss of $302 million one year earlier. This was the first time in three years Sprint did not have a loss for any quarter. However, the positive net income was achieved via cost cutting. Sprint reported almost $370 million of combined year-over-year reductions in cost of services and selling, general and administrative expenses.
Sprint is in the middle of a turnaround plan and has sought to strengthen its balance sheet to compete in a saturated market for wireless service. Although Sprint has cut costs, analysts have said the company is highly leveraged. While its customer base has expanded under Mr. Claure, growth has been driven by heavy discounting. It recently offered free wireless service (including unlimited data) for one year to new subscribers. Sprint’s CEO had previously hinted that the #4 U.S. wireless carrier doesn’t have the necessary funds to invest in 5G infrastructure, which gives more impetus to some type of M&A deal if Sprint is to survive.
A person familiar with the matter told Reuters that SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son is considering making an acquisition offer for the cable company to combine it with Sprint as early as the end of August. The deal would entail SoftBank buying the Sprint shares it does not already own, the Reuters source said.
“The talks with T-Mobile have been encouraging, the talks with other partners have been encouraging,” Mr. Claure said. “Everybody has shown a high level of interest in evaluating Sprint as a potential merger partner,” he added.
The Wall Street Journal reported (on line subscription required) that the offer being considered by Sprint’s chairman and SoftBank founder, Masayoshi Son, would be to form a new publicly traded entity that would use SoftBank money to buyout shareholders of both Sprint and Charter at a premium. The transaction would be funded with roughly half cash and half stock. The deal would result in SoftBank controlling the combined company.
SoftBank has already lined up financing from at least three banks to fund the deal, according to people familiar with the matter. One of them cautioned that it could still take several weeks or more to reach an agreement with either company.
Mr. Claure said a deal with T-Mobile might be the preferred option, but it would be tougher to get past antitrust regulators in Washington. Sprint and T-Mobile held merger talks in 2014 but backed down in the face of regulator opposition.
“If you were to merge with another wireless carrier, the synergies are enormous. I mean, this is a scale business, and today you need to operate two competing networks to offer the same service, having half the amount of customers that AT&T and Verizon have,” Mr. Claure said.
A Charter deal poses its own hurdles, particularly since the company said Sunday that it isn’t interested in buying Sprint. Mr. Claure said Tuesday that Sprint didn’t offer to sell itself, so he was “surprised to see Charter’s announcement.”
Were Sprint to go it alone, the results it reported on August 1st show it has a rough road ahead. The carrier drew praise from analysts for posting its first quarterly profit in three years—$206 million compared with a loss of $302 million a year ago—but revenue fell 4.5% to $8.2 billion and it added fewer customers than rivals. While Sprint started investing more money in network improvements, its quarterly profit came primarily from cost-cutting.
The company said it had 88,000 postpaid phone additions during the quarter, the eighth consecutive period of expansion. However, the pace of growth has slowed from a year ago when the company reported 173,000 postpaid additions. Overall, it still suffered a net loss of 39,000 postpaid subscribers (a figure that includes things like tablets and smartwatches.)
Mr. Claure said Sprint will be fine without a deal, but “doing a strategic transaction will always be significantly better than having a stand-alone entity.”
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“The obvious risk in so openly courting one potential suitor after another is that Sprint will increasingly be viewed as damaged goods,” said analyst Craig Moffet in a research note to clients. “Like an unsold house that has sat too long on the market, an asset that has been shopped too often without success takes on an air of taint.”
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References:
1. Sprint’s earning call webcast- available on demand requires registration at:
2. Sprint Reports Net Income for the First Time in Three Years with 1st Quarter of Fiscal 2017:
3. Earnings Results Presentation:
http://s21.q4cdn.com/487940486/files/doc_financials/quarterly/2017/q1/02_Q1FY17-Slides_Final.pdf