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Technology Stocks : COMS & the Ghost of USRX w/ other STUFF -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: David Lawrence who wrote (15123)	5/1/1998 12:18:00 PM
From: Scrapps	Respond to of 22053

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 techweb.com