BBWN Bites: Macquarie wins Cincinnati Bell bidding war
Also in this broadband sector roundup: European operators ask for the improbable; Calix boasts new deals; US firms react to COVID-19; UK new builds to get Gigabit minimum.
With a bid worth $2.9 billion, Macquarie Infrastructure Partners (MIP) delivered a sucker punch to bidding rival Brookfield Infrastructure and won the fight to acquire Cincinnati Bell, a broadband, video and voice service provider that has operations in Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio, and parts of Hawaii. (See Cincinnati Bell agrees to Macquarie's $2.9B bid .)
With traffic volumes starting to grow, Europe's network operators are asking customers (often the same people fighting over bags of dried food in the supermarket aisles) to show some restraint when using their broadband connections. Good luck with that… (See Euro operators call for broadband discipline as COVID-19 drives people home.)
In the US, ISPs are backing FCC Chairman Ajit Pai's pledge to keep Americans connected during the next 60 days or so, while Google Fiber is slowing itself down in the face of COVID-19. (See US ISPs back Pai's 'Keep Americans Connected Pledge' and Google Fiber halts sales calls, closes retail stores .)
Calix has been bragging about two new deals, one with Home Communications Inc. (HCI) for access gear and management software, and another with Royell Communications for subscriber insight software. (See HCI picks Calix for fiber deployment and Royell gains customer insight with Calix.)
The UK government is to pass legislation that will force construction companies to include a Gigabit broadband connection into every new home built. Currently, according to the UK government, only 20% of new builds come with a built-in Gigabit connection that can be activated by a service provider. For more details, see this announcement. Of course, this is the same government that has pledged to pump billions into rural broadband rollouts and have the entire nation within reach of a high-speed fiber broadband connection by 2025, so seeing will be believing. (See Brits show love for fiber in a time of COVID-19.)
— Ray Le Maistre, Editor-in-Chief, Light Reading, special to Broadband World News
