Qwest’s Q1 profit fell 81 percent year-over-year to $38 million, but CenturyTel, which has agreed to buy that company for $22.4 billion, said quarterly earnings tripled to $252.6 million. The companies continued to lose landline customers.
"We now have seen how satellite radio performs in what was this terrible recession,” and the experience “bodes very, very well for our future,” Sirius XM CEO Mel Karmazin said Tuesday on a quarterly earnings call. “What we found is that consumers love our product. They stuck with us in spite of the 10 percent unemployment."
The House Oversight Committee plans a hearing Thursday on the transition to Networx, the General Services Administration program under which federal agencies can buy telecom, network and information services. The transition is behind schedule and only 38 percent complete, and the government loses $18 million in savings every month the transition is delayed, said the committee, chaired by Rep. Ed Towns, D-N.Y. “The hearing will focus on what is causing the continued delay in transitioning to Networx, what steps the federal government has taken to assist and expedite the transition effort, and what problems private telecommunications companies are encountering with the program’s procurement process,” the committee said. Invited to testify are GSA Administrator Martha Johnson; Sanjeev Bhagowalia, the chairman of the Interagency Management Council in the Interior Department; Senior Vice President Diana Gowen of Qwest Government Services; Senior Vice President Edward Morche of Level 3; Verizon Federal Group President Susan Zeleniak; and Senior Vice President Bill White of Sprint Nextel.
The FCC fined Almega Cable $38,000 for emergency alert system and other violations in Texas. The company failed to install working EAS equipment, notify the Federal Aviation Administration immediately of a lighting outage, or show all red obstruction lighting at an antenna in Bloomington, where it has a cable system, and Yorktown, where it used to have one, said Enforcement Bureau orders released Friday.
Verizon’s FiOS set-tops are 3D-ready, and the telco plans to offer service through its fiber network later this year. But getting 3D programming from competitors that develop and distribute content remains an issue, Verizon said, saying “integrated operators should not withhold programming options from the marketplace."
Atlantic City, N.J., will get a new DTV station (CD Feb 5 p12) because of an FCC ruling issued Wednesday. Channel 4 is being added to the Post-Transition Table of DTV Allotments, a Media Bureau order said. This is the first time the commission has authorized a new TV station in at least several years, said broadcast lawyers and an FCC official. Before last year’s analog cutoff, the commission had put a freeze on accepting applications for new DTV stations, they said.
Verizon and Frontier laid out for the West Virginia Public Service Commission an extensive set of arguments in a filing late Friday summing up the companies’ case for approval of their proposed transaction. The deal would give Frontier ownership of Verizon landlines in 14 states. It ran into resistance last week when an administrative law judge with the Illinois Commerce Commission recommended against approval, saying consumers would be ill-served (CD March 11 p13). Illinois, West Virginia and Washington are the only states where approval of the transaction remains pending.
Insight Communications 2009 sales gained 13 percent to $981 million, the company said, reporting full-year results only. It added 8,800 basic video subscribers during the year, 43,000 broadband customers and 38,900 phone customers.
Fewer than 900 of almost 50,000 U.S. companies and nonprofit organizations surveyed by the FCC lack Internet access. But results the commission posted online Monday include that almost 1,200 respondents reported having only dial-up service. Almost 9,100 said they had a choice among broadband providers, but more than 38,000 said they didn’t. Just more than 30,000 said they were very satisfied with their service. Almost 15,600 were somewhat satisfied and more than 2,200 said they were dissatisfied. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is scheduled to announce Tuesday at the Brookings Institution results of a survey about why some Americans choose not to pay for broadband service.
Liberty Global said it completed the sale of its 38 percent stake in Japan’s Jupiter Telecommunications to KDDI (CD Jan 26 p9).