United States Telecom companies facing severe threat-IT information

On November 3, the wired website has said United States traditional communications companies are facing threats from all sides. United States third-largest telecommunications company CenturyLink recently agreed to buy another $34 billion telecoms operator Level 3, which fully reflect the great changes in the telecommunications industry. The following is the main content of the article:

United States television network and telecommunications companies were active in mergers and acquisitions.

This summer, AOL back door one year later, Verizon agreed to buy Yahoo. Last month, the AT&T agreed to buy media giant Time Warner for $85.4 billion price (Time Warner). Today, the United States's third largest telecommunications company CenturyLink agreed to buy is committed to operating the "trunk" Internet service provider Level 3 Communications.

These actions show that the traditional communications companies are now facing threats from all sides. Amazon, Facebook, Netflix and other companies through the streaming video service, is challenging traditional television. Google, Apple and other smartphone manufacturers is eating away at the United States powers of honeycomb Internet services, Google even provides its own Web services. Some Internet companies, including Amazon and Google and even dabbling in home Internet services. Therefore, the traditional companies trying to fight back.

These telecommunications companies are basically in the foray into the media field. Cable giant Comcast (Comcast) in 2011, since the acquisition of NBC Universal, which formed a trend. As communications networks gradually lose power, telecommunications companies have acquired covering the network media, such as TV shows, TV channels, Movie Studio and network Empire. CenturyLink purchase of Level 3, are completely different in nature.

CenturyLink's consumer household Internet subscribers are constantly drain. "Cord" trend has caused to its pay-television subscriber base erode. 5G wireless network will be CenturyLink to steal more users. Therefore, the company will now focus on the enterprise service, such service has become a major part of its revenues. Recently, it has also set foot in another area in cloud computing-and trying to challenge Google, Amazon and other companies. Now, it took its Internet services directly at the Enterprise Level 3.

One thing, the very reasonable. However, although the size of as much as $34 billion deal short term might help CenturyLink, but the reality is that companies did not like the ever-so-needed companies like Level 3--that is because Google, Amazon and Facebook. In many ways, the deal reflects the tremendous changes in the telecommunications industry.

Level 3 is where the divine?

Level 3 is what company? To understand this, you must first understand how the Internet works. In 1990, the politicians and the media to describe the Internet as the "information superhighway". But rather, the Internet is more like a highway system, rather than a single highway.

Imagine that you want through Verizon in New York from a computer connected to the Internet to send data to a computer with Internet connection through Comcast in San Francisco. A series of virtual roads connecting the two cities called "trunk" Internet service.

However, the difference between the Internet and the Interstate Highway system, telecommunications companies have these highways. Verizon, Comcast, and CenturyLink and other Internet access providers have many different cities all the virtual highway that connects, but not all virtual highway for them all. All parts for companies like Level 3, these companies are mainly to make money by connecting a different Internet provider. The business is known as the "continued", but it is declining.

Bypass the forwarding service

Australia's first Internet access providers-founder jiefu·hasidun (Geoff Huston) published a long paper explains why. A growing number of companies are no longer built in a single data center space or leasing space in favour of content distribution networks such as Akamai and Cloudflare (hereinafter "CDN") hosting their data. These companies all over the world running servers in the data center, data centers are connected to the Internet access provider, bypassing the forwarding service providers like Level 3.

Some companies, including Google and Facebook even go further. They are building their own data centers, acquisition of unused fiber optic infrastructure, funded the construction of new undersea cables, thus linking these data centers together. Then, Facebook and Google are able to almost completely bypassing the traditional telecommunications companies: they only need to deal with to sell to end users Internet access service provider. This is Amazon not only built a network of distribution centers to send their goods to all over America, bought the abandoned Highway (or railway), to send their products from the warehouse to your town, the whole process completely without touching the Interstate Highway System.

As explained in Harston, as companies turn to CDN, which makes transfer services declining, declining yields. Meanwhile, telecommunications companies, including the CenturyLink and Level3 is providing its own CDN services and other commercial network services, such as cloud hosting and fixed connection between the commercial devices such as ATM and Bank. They see the industry. "What remained from long distance transfer requirements? Forwarding service provider or do you have a future? "Harston.

New power

Even the CDN provider like Akamai, it faces threats from the Internet giant. Amazon provided its own CDN services, according to a Datanyze study report of the company CDN service to cover more than half of the top 1 million sites. All other CDN providers are far behind Amazon. Google's AMP and Facebook Instant Articles also posed a threat to CDN. Publishers that use those services are not in their own server or hosting content on a CDN, but CDN on Google and Facebook, which was being further marginalized by telecommunications companies.

Yes, CenturyLink and Level 3 are in profit performance and sound. They were recorded in the first quarter on about $152 million and profit of $143 million. Lucky for them is that both sides not only provide transfer services and Internet access services. But their marriage was like two old families facing the impact of the new power has to hold together for warmth, and slow the fading process. Unless something changes, otherwise they will be treated as an error of Bashar.

美国传统电信公司面临严峻威胁 - IT资讯

11月3日消息，《连线》网站近日撰文称，美国的传统通信公司面临着来自四面八方的威胁。美国第三大电信公司CenturyLink近日同意以340亿美元的价格收购另一家电信运营商Level 3，该交易充分反映了电信行业的巨大变化。以下是文章主要内容：

美国的电视网络和电信公司都在积极地进行并购。

今年夏天，在将AOL收归门下一年后，Verizon同意收购雅虎。上个月，AT&T达成协议以854亿美元的天价收购媒体巨头时代华纳（Time Warner）。如今，美国第三大电信公司CenturyLink又同意收购致力于运营“主干”互联网服务的Level 3 Communications。

这些交易行动表明，这些传统通信公司如今面临来自四面八方的威胁。亚马逊、Facebook、Netflix等公司正在通过流媒体视频服务挑战传统电视。谷歌、苹果等智能手机厂商正在蚕食美国蜂窝网络服务商的权势，谷歌甚至还提供自有的网络服务。部分互联网公司，其中包括亚马逊和谷歌，甚至在涉足家用互联网服务领域。因此，那些传统公司在想方设法作出反击。

这些电信公司基本上都在进军媒体领域。自有线电视巨头康卡斯特（Comcast）2011年收购NBC Universal以来，这形成了趋势。随着通信网络逐渐失去权势，电信公司们纷纷收购覆盖这些网络的媒体，如电视节目、电视频道、电影工作室和网络帝国。而CenturyLink收购Level 3之举，在性质上则全然不同。

CenturyLink的消费级家用互联网订户正在不断流失。“掐线”趋势对它的付费电视用户基础造成了蚕食。5G无线网络也势必将会从CenturyLink手中抢走更多的用户。因此，该公司目前将重心放在企业服务上，该类服务已经成了其营收的主要组成部分。最近，它还涉足云计算——试图在另一领域挑战谷歌、亚马逊等公司。现在，它拿下旗下互联网服务直接对准企业的Level 3。

一方面，该举非常合乎情理。然而，虽然该笔规模高达340亿美元的交易短期可能会给CenturyLink带来帮助，但现实情况是，企业如今并没有像以往那么需要像Level 3这样的公司——那也是因为谷歌、亚马逊和Facebook的存在。在很多方面，该交易反映了电信行业的巨大变化。

Level 3是何方神圣？

Level 3究竟是家什么公司呢？要理解这一点，你必须先理解互联网是如何运作的。在1990年代，政治家和媒体将互联网描述为“信息高速公路”。但确切来说，互联网更像是高速公路系统，而非单一的高速公路。

想象一下，你想要在纽约从一台通过Verizon连接互联网的计算机将数据发送到旧金山的一台通过康卡斯特连接互联网的计算机。连接两个城市的一连串虚拟道路被称作“主干”互联网服务。

然而，互联网和州际高速公路系统之间的区别在于，电信公司拥有这些高速公路。Verizon、康卡斯特、CenturyLink以及其它的互联网接入提供商拥有很多将各个不同城市连接在一起的虚拟高速公路，但并非所有的虚拟高速公路都为它们所有。部分为像Level 3这样的公司所有，这些公司主要通过连接不同的互联网提供商来赚钱。这种业务被称作“转接”，但它正日渐式微。

绕过转接服务

澳大利亚首家互联网接入提供商的创始人杰夫·哈斯顿（Geoff Huston）发表长论文解释了原因。越来越多的公司不再在单一的数据中心中建造空间或者租赁空间，转而通过像Akamai和Cloudflare这样的内容分发网络（以下简称“CDN”）托管它们的数据。这些公司在遍布全球各地的数据中心中运营服务器，那些数据中心连接了互联网接入提供商，绕过了像Level 3这样的转接服务提供商。

包括谷歌和Facebook在内的一些公司甚至走得更远。它们建造自有的数据中心，收购未使用的光纤基础设施，出资建造新海底电缆，从而将这些数据中心连接在一起。接着，Facebook和谷歌能够几乎完全绕过传统的电信公司：它们只需要应付向终端用户出售接入服务的互联网提供商。这好比是亚马逊不仅仅建造了配送中心网络来将商品送到全美各地，还收购了被遗弃的高速公路（又或者铁路轨道），来将产品从它的仓储中心送到你的城镇，整个过程完全不用接触州际高速公路系统。

正如哈斯顿所解释的，随着内容公司转向CDN，这使得转接服务的重要性日益下降，收益也不断减少。与此同时，包括CenturyLink和Level3在内的电信公司正提供自有的CDN服务以及其它的商业网络服务，如云托管和ATM等商业设备和银行之间的固定连接。它们看到了行业风向。“长距离转接还剩下什么需求呢？转接服务提供商还有将来吗？”哈斯顿在想。

新势力

连像Akamai这样的CDN提供商如今也面临来自互联网巨头的威胁。亚马逊提供自有的CDN服务，根据Datanyze的研究报告，该公司的CDN服务覆盖最热门的100万个网站中的一半以上。所有其它的CDN提供商都被亚马逊远远甩在身后。谷歌的AMP和Facebook的Instant Articles项目也对CDN构成了威胁。使用那些服务的出版商并不是在自有的服务器或者CDN上托管内容，而是在谷歌和Facebook的CDN上，这让电信公司被进一步边缘化。

诚然，CenturyLink和Level 3都处于盈利，业绩稳健。它们在上一季度分别录得大约1.52亿美元和1.43亿美元的盈利。对于它们来说幸运的是，双方并不只是提供转接服务和互联网接入服务。但它们的联姻，就像是两个老家族面对新势力的冲击不得不抱团取暖，减缓衰落进程。除非有什么变动，否则它们将会作为错误的典范载入史册。