centurylink

Too late.

The already poor chance that CenturyLink would get permission from the California Public Utilities Commission to buy Level 3 Communications before the end of September took another steep nosedive yesterday. A 5:00 p.m. deadline came and went without a draft decision – yes or no – being released by the CPUC administrative law judge (ALJ) and commissioner handling the case.

In the normal course of business, proposed decisions have to go through a 30 day public review and comment process before being voted on by commissioners.… More

CenturyLink’s proposed purchase of Level 3 Communications appears likelier than not to be delayed for months. Yesterday, the California Public Utilities Commission set a tentative schedule for completing its review of the deal, with a target date of mid-November. That would mean the two companies will have to agree to extend their self-imposed deadline of 31 October 2017 if they still want to complete the transaction.

That won’t necessarily be the case. The ruling issued by commissioner Martha Guzman Aceves yesterday is vague – in many respects – and leaves room for a faster decision.… More

“I’m hoping there’s something more that the parties can do to prepare for a decision at a later date”, Regina DeAngelis, an administrative law judge with the California Public Utilities Commission, told lawyers for CenturyLink, Level 3 and a handful of organisations that have involved themselves in the regulatory review of the two companies’ plan to combine into one. She presided over yesterday’s pre-hearing conference at the CPUC’s San Francisco headquarters – the opening event of what could be an enquiry lasting several months.… More

CenturyLink plans to apply its closed, monopoly-centric business model to wholesale services that Level 3 Communications now sells on the open market, if the two companies are allowed to combine. That’s the gist of an objection filed yesterday to CenturyLink’s planned purchase of Level 3 by a VoIP service provider, Telnyx LLC.

VoIP providers like Telnyx buy wholesale connectivity services that allow subscribers to make calls to the rest of the world via the public switched telephone network (PSTN).… More

Someone at CenturyLink – or maybe Level 3 Communications – finally inhaled deeply, exhaled fully and chanted California’s national mantra: go with the flow, go with the flow. In its latest filing with the California Public Utilities Commission, CenturyLink finally admitted that the September deadline for closing its deal to buy Level 3 that it’s been puffing and huffing about, I’m sorry, huffing and puffing about isn’t a deadline at all.

Since the purchase agreement was announced last October, CenturyLink has been trying to jam it through the necessary regulatory reviews by wailing about a phoney, self-imposed deadline and falsely claiming that the deal won’t hurt competition in what passes for a broadband market in California.… More

Okay, maybe not high noon. But can we say twelve-ish?

When CenturyLink and Level 3 Communications signed their marriage license, they set an 11 month time limit to take their vows. That’s common enough in major transactions – setting closing dates makes it easier to structure financial packages and it keeps everyone focused on getting it done. But blowing past such deadlines is not uncommon either, and coming to agreement on extensions is a relatively straightforward process, if the companies involved still want to make it happen.… More