Thursday, January 31, 2013
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Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Verizon FiOS lifts wireline consumer revenues to $14 billion in 2012
January 22, 2013 | By Sean Buckley
Verizon's (NYSE: VZ) fourth-quarter wireline results may
have declined to $10 billion year-over-year, but it saw continued growth in
consumer services, particularly FiOS.
Despite the impact of Hurricane Sandy, FiOS continued to
dominate Verizon's consumer wireline revenue mix. During the quarter, it added
144,000 net new FiOS Internet connections and 134,000 net new FiOS Video
connections.
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Interestingly, Hurricane Sandy, as seen in previous reports,
sped up the telco's copper-to-fiber migration plans. Lowell McAdam, Verizon's
CEO and chairman said during a recent investor conference that it will
accelerate the migration of customers on its copper facilities to fiber in
2013.|
As reported in FierceIPTV, Fran Shammo, Verizon's CFO, said
during the earnings webcast this morning that "net adds were greater than
the second and third quarters… in spite of the significant disruption caused by
the [Superstorm] Sandy restoral efforts.
The telco's Q4 wireline consumer revenues grew 4.1 percent
year-over-year over Q4 2011. From a total year perspective, 2012 consumer
revenues were $14 billion, up 3.2 percent compared over 2011.
It said this was highest annual revenue growth rate in the
consumer wireline segment it has seen since 2003.
Here's a breakdown of Verizon's key wireline metrics:
Landline Losses: Following the wireline industrywide trend,
Verizon's traditional landline voice connections overall declined 6.8 percent
year-over-year to 22.5 million down from 24.1 million in Q4 2011.
Broadband and video:
As of the end of the quarter, Verizon had a total of 5.4 million FiOS Internet
and 4.7 million FiOS video connections, representing year-over-year increases
of 12.6 percent and 13.3 percent, respectively. FiOS customer ARPU was more
than $150 in the quarter. FiOS Internet penetration was 37.3 percent at the end
of fourth-quarter 2012, compared with 35.5 percent at the end of fourth-quarter
2011.
As of the end of 2012, the FiOS network passed 17.6 million
premises at year-end 2012. At the end of 2012, broadband connections rose 1.4
percent year-over-year to 8.8 million at year-end 2012. Purchases of higher
speed FiOS services drove broadband revenue up 3.1 percent to $3.5 billion for
full-year 2012.
Another dynamic of FiOS growth is that more customers are
purchasing dual and triple play bundles of voice, video and data. Shammo said during the Q4 earnings call that
"customers who are deciding to upgrade to additional FiOS services, we are
seeing a $45 lift in monthly ARPU." Subscriber ARPU was $105.63, up from
$103.86 in Q3 and $9.20 higher than Q4 2011.
Business Services: Due to economic issues in Europe and the
United States, global enterprise revenues declined 2.1 percent year-over-year
to $3.8 billion in the quarter. Despite the overall decline, the sale of
strategic services, including Terremark cloud and data center services,
security and IT solutions, and Ethernet, increased 5.3 percent compared with Q4
2011 and represented 54 percent of global enterprise revenues.
From an overall financial perspective, Verizon reported a
loss of $1.48 in earnings per share (EPS), compared with a loss of 71 cents per
share in Q4 2011. The telco said the results were impacted by "non-cash
pension items in both quarters and additional non-operational debt retirement
and other restructuring items in 4Q 2012." It also reported a
7-cent-per-share impact due to Superstorm Sandy yielded 38 cents per share in
adjusted EPS (non-GAAP), compared with 52 cents in adjusted EPS in Q4 2011.
For the year, Verizon reported 31 cents in 2012 EPS,
compared with 85 cents per share in 2011, while adjusted annual EPS (non-GAAP)
was $2.24 in 2012, compared with $2.15 in 2011.
AT&T to acquire Alltel's spectrum, remaining customers for $780M
January 22, 2013 | By Phil Goldstein
AT&T Mobility (NYSE:T) said it will acquire Atlantic
Tele-Network's retail wireless business, which still operates under the Alltel
brand, for $780 million, in a deal that could give AT&T more spectrum
holdings in key bands.
Under the deal, AT&T will get wireless properties
including licenses, network assets, retail stores and approximately 585,000
subscribers. The Alltel network covers around 4.6 million people in primarily
rural areas across Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio and South
Carolina. In 2010, ATN purchased for $200 million Alltel assets divested by
Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ) as part of Verizon's larger deal for Alltel.
AT&T's acquisition includes spectrum in the 700 MHz, 850
MHz and 1900 MHz bands and is largely complementary to AT&T's existing
network. ATN also currently operates a retail CDMA network for its subscribers
in these areas; AT&T is a GSM carrier so it will need to convert these
customers to its network. AT&T said it expects that as it upgrades the
network, the Alltel customers and existing AT&T customers who roam in these
areas will enjoy enhanced mobile data service.
The companies noted that the FCC and Department of Justice
need to approve the deal; they said they expected it to close in the second
half of 2013.
For AT&T, the deal represents its latest move to acquire
pieces of spectrum to enhance its LTE network and other mobile data services
following its failed bid to acquire T-Mobile USA for $39 billion. AT&T last
year received approval from the FCC to acquire a trove of new spectrum in the
AWS and 2.3 GHz WCS bands, which it intends to use for LTE service in the years
ahead. AT&T got spectrum from NextWave Wireless as well as from Comcast,
Horizon Wi-Com and San Diego Gas & Electric Company.
AT&T's deal for ATN also represents the last bit of
Alltel being absorbed into a Tier 1 carrier. ATN had maintained the Alltel
brand and many of the company's well-known products, including the My Circle
group calling plan. Verizon's $28.1 billion acquisition of Alltel closed in
January 2009.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
AT&T, Verizon and CenturyLink embroiled in ADSL patent fight with Brandywine
January 3, 2013 | By Sean Buckley
AT&T (NYSE: T), Verizon (NYSE: VZ) and CenturyLink
(NYSE: CTL)--three of the largest U.S. incumbent telcos--are in the midst of a
patent war with Brandywine Communications Technologies, a patent holding
company.
In a number of U.S. court complaints, Brandywine claims that
a number of telcos and CLECs have infringed on seven different DSL-related
patents that it says it owns.
At issue are patents that relate to various DSL-related
techniques, from "detecting loss of echo cancellation" (U.S. patent
number 5,206,854) to "predistortion technique for communications
systems" (U.S. patent number 5,251,328).
To date, Brandywine has sued over 39 different service
providers.
In addition to filing a lawsuit against AT&T, Verizon
and Centurylink last year, the company has sued Windstream (Nasdaq: WIN),
IKANO, and Megapath. It is also currently trying to settle one of its cases
with EarthLink (Nasdaq: ELNK).
Brandywine's moves are familiar to anyone who's been
following the string of patent infringement claims--some apparently legitimate,
others somewhat sketchy--that have plagued providers across the industry.
Last May, a group of eight service providers and vendors,
including Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU), EarthLink (Nasdaq: ELNK), and Metro PCS,
entered into separate patent agreements with visual voicemail provider Klausner
Technologies for its consumer and enterprise visual voicemail products.
However, three of the other 12 defendants, including Toshiba
America, Primus Telecommunications, and Paetec--which at that time had just
been acquired by Windstream, now also defending a patent infringement lawsuit
brought by Klausner, did not settle.
While Brandywine is the latest so-called "patent
troll" to emerge, they likely won't be the last as patent disputes have
been an ongoing issue in both the wireline and wireless segments of the telecom
industry. A recent report found that patent infringement lawsuits have
increased over the past five years from 22 percent of all patent lawsuits filed
to 40 percent.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
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