Power Companies Could Be Communications
Powerhouses
(04/30/98; 8:01 p.m. ET)
By Margie Semilof, Computer Reseller News
Whoever said everything old is new again probably was
not talking about Internet services.
Thursday's purchase of a professional Web services firm
by an ISP subsidiary of a utility, underscores the
growing trend of power companies,which own physical
rights of way, emerging as telecommunications
powerhouses.
The ISP, Interpath Communications, Raleigh, N.C.,
which is a subsidiary of Carolina Power and Light
(CP&L), will merge with TriNet Services, Cary, N.C,. a
consulting and Internet development firm. Details of the
deal were not disclosed.
"We are seeing companies with rights of way use them
for telecommunications purposes in the Internet space,"
said Joel Maloff, president of Maloff Group International,
a Dexter, Mich., consulting firm.
"Carolina [Power and Light] broadened themselves from
being a bandwidth or pipe, to being a provider of
professional services," he said.
Maloff said the trend for companies that own physical
rights of way is actually coming back for the second
time around.
Companies such as The Williams Co., a Tulsa, Okla.,
natural gas company, in the 1980s used its massive
pipeline to string the fiber that formed the foundation of
its telecommunications company, called WilTel. WilTel's
services, but not the rights of way, were subsequently
sold to WorldCom.
Another example is Level 3 Communications, which was
founded in 1985 as a subsidiary of Peter Kiewit and
Sons, a 114-year-old construction, mining, and
information services company based in Omaha, Neb.
Level 3 is currently building a nationwide IP network.
Level 3 is Kiewit's second foray into
telecommunications. Kiewit was responsible for building
Chicago Fiber Optics, a competitive local exchange
carrier, in the 1980s. Kiewit renamed the company
Metropolitan Fiber Service, which eventually acquired
UUNet Technologies. Both were subsequently acquired
by WorldCom.
Maloff said concerns about WorldCom and MCI owning
too much backbone are groundless because of the
massive construction occurring in fiber networks.
"You have more people building networks for the first
time," Maloff said. "As we see new entries from power
utilities, satellite providers, and others, we will have
plenty of alternatives to any single monopolistic entity. |
