Bad data on the digital settop market. It may be a segment number. 1998 settops were 10M units, this year projected at 14M(it's low).
Big money has been buying wireless cable. They must plan on using it...............................
multichannel.com
July 20, 1999:
MCI to Acquire Wireless One
Jackson, Miss. -- MCI WorldCom Inc., the No. 2 long-distance carrier in the nation, has agreed to acquire Wireless One Inc., a wireless cable provider based here, in a transaction involving cash and debt.
MCI, which already owns about two-thirds of Wireless One's debt, agreed to pay the full amount due to other debt-holders and to pay holders of Wireless One stock about $22.6 million in cash, or around $1.31 per share.
According to the company, Wireless One has about $340 million in debt outstanding. It holds spectrum licenses to offer high-speed Internet, data-communications and telephony service in about 11 states in the Southeast.
The company currently provides wireless cable services in seven states, and it also resells DirecTV Inc. direct-broadcast satellite services.
The Wireless One acquisition will add to MCI's growing portfolio of wireless cable holdings.
In April, the company purchased 48 percent of CAI Wireless Systems Inc.'s stock -- it has since upped that stake to 60 percent -- and it owns about $200 million in debt in several other wireless cable companies.
MCI's wireless cable moves are an effort to gain access to the "last-mile" connection directly to the customer premises.
- 7/20/99
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