Hawaiian Telcom (Nasdaq: HCOM) reported first-quarter 2012 revenue of $97.6 million, down 1 percent from $98.5 million year-over-year, as continued growth in video, business data and consumer broadband offset the impact of expected access line loss.

The Hawaii-based telco’s adjusted EBITDA remained unchanged from the same period, at $28.6 million.

Net income, meanwhile, was $0.2 million, or $0.02 per diluted share. Company net income was impacted by a one-time $5.1 million charge to pay down debt related to the refinancing of its $300 million term loan. Taking out the $5.1 million one-time charge, pro-forma net income was $5.3 million, down from $5.5 million in the same period a year ago.

Here’s a breakdown of its key unit results:

• Landline loss: Consumer revenue was $33.6 million, down $1.7 million, due to the ongoing decline of legacy local and long distance services, partially offset by growth in video and consumer High Speed Internet (HSI) broadband data revenue. Total landline voice lines declined sequentially 1.9 percent, to 408,883 lines. To offset landline voice declines, the telco plans to continue growing its next-generation services: including broadband, business services, and its newly launched IPTV service.

• Broadband and video: Broadband and video continues to be a hot seller in its consumer portfolio. Driven by video bundle sales and enhancements to the broadband network, consumer HSI subscribers increased 2.7 percent year-over-year, to 85,500. Meanwhile, TV subscriber penetration increased to over 9 percent of the 41,200 homes it enabled so far, up almost 6 percent of the 27,400 households enabled at the end of 2011. An additional key contributor to video growth was that it was able to secure six new bulk multi-dwelling unit (MDU) contracts adding about 1,100 units, increasing its total to 13 bulk MDU contracts and over 3,000 units.

• Business Services: Buoyed by equipment sales and managed services revenue, business revenue increased 5.4 percent year-over-year, to $42.1 million. Two other factors that contributed to growth of the telco’s business segment was the ongoing demand for IP-based data services–including Ethernet, IP VPN and Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) services and broadband–which rose 9 percent and 6 percent, respectively.  

• Wholesale: The ongoing migration from legacy TDM to IP services continues to be a drag on the ILEC’s wholesale revenue, which declined 4.1 percent year-over-year, to $18.6 million. Wholesale carrier data revenue declined 3.6 percent year-over-year, to $16.2 million, a factor it attributed to a number of wireless operators replacing their lower bandwidth legacy circuits with fiber-based Ethernet circuits. At the same time, switched carrier access revenue declined 7.1 percent year-over-year, to $2.4 million, a factor that’s mainly the result of an overall decline in traditional access lines.

Eric Yeaman, Hawaiian Telcom’s president and CEO, recognized in the earnings release that like other ILECs, his company is also going through its share of legacy to next-gen service growing pains.     

“Our results reflect the expected decline in certain legacy revenues, but the investment we continue to make in our broadband infrastructure is increasing our capabilities, expanding our product portfolio and better positioning us to grow next-generation revenue,” Yeaman said.

Hawaiian Telcom’s shares were trading Friday morning at $20.30, down 0.20, or 0.98 percent, on the Nasdaq.

For more:
- see the earnings release (.pdf)

Special Report: Wireline in the first quarter of 2012

Related articles:
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Hawaiian Telcom’s Q4 2011 gains in business, broadband and wholesale offset landline revenue declines
Hawaiian Telcom migrates to Nasdaq Global Market
Hawaiian Telcom saves $6M by refinancing debt

Source:Fierce Telecom

Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO) reported its fiscal third-quarter 2012 earnings rose 20 percent, beating Wall Street expectations. 

The San Jose, Calif.-based company reported non-GAAP earnings of $2.6 billion, marking an 11 percent year-over-year increase.  Q3 net sales of $11.6 billion were 7 percent over the same quarter a year ago.

For the quarter ended April 28, Cisco announced earnings of 48 cents per share. Analysts had expected per-share earnings of 47 cents.

“We delivered solid results this quarter with record revenue and non-GAAP earnings per share,” Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers said. “We are successfully executing against our long-term strategic plan of growing profit faster than revenue, and in a cautious IT spending environment, we continue to outperform our competitors.”

For the first nine months of Cisco’s fiscal year 2012, net sales totaled $34.4 billion, compared with $32 billion for the same period in 2011.

Meanwhile, non-GAAP net income for the first nine months was $7.5 billion, or $1.38 per share, compared with $6.8 billion, or $1.22 per share, for the fiscal-year 2011 period.

“In a world of clouds, video and mobile device proliferations, the role of the intelligent network has never been greater and our value proposition with our customers is the strongest it has ever been,” Chamber said. “Our vision and strategy is focused on the right market transitions.”

For more:
– see the earnings release
– more Cisco news

Special Report: Wireline in the first quarter of 2012

Related articles: 
Analyst anticipates big things from Cisco earnings; First Communications tabs zColo
Cisco all over Insieme; Inmarsat works with Honeywell
Cisco acquires ClearAccess, boosts residential network management capabilities

Source:Fierce Telecom

Verizon (NYSE: VZ) has set a foundation to add 100G optical capabilities into its global metro networks and is adding Ciena’s (Nasdaq: CIEN) control-plane technology to simplify network management and reduce optical circuit provisioning time.

Already using 100G on a number of its major international and domestic U.S. long-haul network routes, the telco said that these two moves will enable it “to provide greater scalability and functionality while supporting higher access speeds.”

For these two initiatives, Verizon has deployed Ciena’s 5430 Reconfigurable Switching System, a packet optical transport system (P-OTS), a device that includes OTN (Optical Transport Network) aggregation and switching to deliver higher speed wavelength services to enterprise customers.

With the new control-plane initiative, Verizon will gain two new advantages: It will enable end-to-end optical transport and complement its global mesh architecture capabilities, which are designed to ensure constant uptime by creating paths to reroute traffic in the event of multiple breaks or network disruptions.

In the event of a natural or manmade disaster, the mesh technology enables the telco to automatically reroute customer traffic to another available path without human intervention.

Set to be deployed in major global metro markets in the first half of 2013, Verizon said the extension of the 100G technology will provide broader network access coverage for large multi-site enterprise and government customers.

What’s driving the need to bring 100G into the metro is quite simply the advent of new bandwidth hungry applications, including cloud, 4G LTE, and its recently launched low-latency financial service that’s carried on its 100G route between Chicago and New York City.

Being one of the front runner service providers in the 100G optical networking race, this latest deployment is another proof point that other operators can cite as they move forward with their own respective 100G metro and long-haul deployments.    

For more:
- see the release

Download our eBook:  100 Gbps Networks See the Light

Related articles:
Verizon, NEC conduct Terabit speed optical transmission field trial
OIF puts Ethernet over OTN on display at Interoperability 2012 event
In detail: Tracking the 100G path
Infonetics: Service provider 40G/100G optical transition gains momentum

Source:Fierce Telecom

West Virginia officials may have “made some mistakes” in how they’ve gone about spending $126 million in federal economic stimulus funds to expand the state’s high-speed Internet, state Commerce Secretary Keith Burdette concedes, adding that if that’s the case “we need to take lemons and make lemonade.”

Burdette

Among other things, the state supposedly spent $22,600 apiece on routers intended for major research universities, medical centers and large corporations and deployed them into small libraries, elementary schools and health clinics. The deployment devoured about $25 million of the federal funds.

“I’m reading stuff in your stories and learning stuff in the process,” Burdette told The Charleston Gazette. “If those routers are bigger than we need, then we need to figure out what we do about it. Where do we go from here? Let’s figure out how we can use them.”

Virginia-based ICF International, a consulting firm first hired to analyze West Virginia’s existing broadband infrastructure, has been given expanded responsibilities to figure out how the stimulus money should be spent. Part of that process will include a financial audit.

“We need guidance from folks who aren’t trying to sell us something,” Burdette was quoted by The Gazette as saying.

For more:
- see this story

Related articles:
Failures and triumphs on the road to broadband ubiquity
FCC opens $300M fund to boost rural broadband access

Source:Fierce Telecom

What’s next, Sears catalogs?

AT&T (NYSE: T), citing the growth of online resources, wants to stop delivering white pages to every Louisiana household. Those who want the residential phone listings could specifically request a directory or a CD ROM.

The decision only affects residential listings, not advertiser-supported yellow pages or the business version of the white pages, both of which would continue to be dropped off at customer homes, The Associated Press reported.

“The traditional residential white page telephone directory no longer provides the same utility it once did as customers are now turning less and less to the residential white pages directory and are looking to online and other resources for listing information,” AT&T’s request to the Louisiana Public Service Commission said.

Nonsense–or words of that nature–state Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell said. AT&T just wants to make more money.

“What do you think people are going to do when you take their telephone directory away?” he asked, before providing his own answer. “They’re going to call 411 and pay $1.50. If they don’t have a computer, they’re going to call 411.”

AT&T claims that “at least” 19 states have removed mandatory directory delivery and that less than 1 percent of customers who did not get a directory in 75 affected markets requested one. AT&T declined to say how much it spends annually on its white pages and how many customers it has in Louisiana but carrier spokeswoman Kim Allen noted that the carrier would rather use the directory money to upgrade broadband services.

Public Service Commissioner Clyde Holloway sees a green aspect to the idea. “I think it would be good environmentally,” he said. “Every school I know goes through collecting phone books for recycling,”

For more:
- see this AP story

Related articles:
Harris: 87% of Americans surveyed prefer opt-in for residential white pages delivery
FairPoint has no plans to stop delivering white pages in New Hampshire
Verizon petitions Maryland, Virginia regulators to stop printing white pages
AT&T sells big portion of its directory business to Cerberus Capital
AT&T hopes to fetch $1.5B by selling stake in its Yellow Pages business

Source:Fierce Telecom

It pays to be the biggest even if you may not necessarily be the best. That’s one way of looking at a Consumer Reports’ survey that hedged a bit before naming Verizon FiOS (NYSE: VZ) as “highly rated” among providers offering a triple play of voice, video and data services, the magazine says in its June issue.

Throw out big and regional telecom provider WOW (WideOpenWest), which “was also top rated,” the magazine said.

Verizon had the chops to score higher than the major cable companies for “TV picture, sound and channel selection” and got top grades for Internet speed. The telco lost points, though, because of complaints about bills for its triple play and the fact that subscribers must rent a receiver for every TV.

WOW, which has a smaller subscriber base than Verizon, mostly in the Midwest, got pretty glowing praise across the board.

“With the very best providers so limited in availability, the leading options for many consumers will be either the cable provider where they live or satellite TV service, paired with Internet and likely phone service from other providers,” Paul Reynolds, electronics editor at Consumer Reports said in a statement. “The best choice for you may depend in part on your particular cable company, since cable varied widely in satisfaction, depending on the provider.”

If you’re looking beyond Verizon and WOW, meanwhile, the magazine said you could do worse than Bright House Networks, Cox, Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) or AT&T (NYSE: T) U-verse. And who’s that leave out?

For more:
- see this news release
- FierceCable has this coverage

Special Report: Unraveling the triple play bundle

Related articles:
CWA rises up against Verizon-cable wireless spectrum dealings
Strategy Analytics: Verizon FiOS poised for continued growth in 2012
WideOpenWest to buy Knology for $1.5B

Source:Fierce Telecom

Verizon’s (NYSE: VZ) decision to couple its DSL service with landline service for new customers and those seeking to change service plans has drawn the attention of U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) who had some pointed questions for the carrier.

Rep. Doyle

“What are Verizon’s plans for its DSL network? Does the company plan to continue investing in network maintenance and upgrades? What was the reason behind Verizon’s recent decision to couple ’standalone DSL’ service with voice service for new subscribers or those subscribers seeking to make change to their service?” Doyle asked in a letter to Verizon.

Verizon has shifted its focus–some say to the benefit of competing wireline cable operators–to a fixed LTE Home Fusion product for areas where FiOS is not an option. This, critics say, strands those subscribers who don’t mind the lower DSL speeds and do like the lower DSL costs.

Doyle linked his questions with Verizon’s efforts to acquire wireless spectrum from a group of cable operators and, at the same time, enter into a joint marketing agreement with those operators.

For more:
- Broadband DSLReports has this story

Related articles:
Verizon to stop selling ‘dry loop’ DSL to consumers
Groups press Verizon to offer standalone DSL, Cox targets business customers with new website
Verizon HomeFusion fixed LTE service launched nationwide
Verizon faces lawsuit from customer over advertised DSL speed

Source:Fierce Telecom

AT&T (NYSE: T)–or at least a key executive–thinks that WiFi-only tablets are, or soon should be, a thing of the past and vendors should automatically build 3G/4G capability into their product lines.

Click here for a larger view of this infographic. (Source: Wi-Fi Alliance)

“All devices should have all capabilities built in from the beginning,” Glenn Lurie, AT&T’s president of emerging devices told PC Advisor. That hasn’t been the case so far, he conceded, because cellular connectivity costs more than Wi-Fi and that cost differential knocked the “ecosystem a little out of balance.”

With prices dropping on mobile-equipped tablets, Lurie said the time has come to consider abandoning WiFi-only product lines. Of course, that would mean more across-the-board cost for consumers–Apple adds $130 to its iPad price for 4G and other makers tag on at least $50 more–and it wouldn’t obviate the need, or desire for WiFi.

That desire was amplified in a survey conducted by Wakefield Research for the Wi-Fi Alliance that found “90 percent of those polled said they would likely stick with their current (wireline) service provider if it offered the ability to connect automatically to WiFi hotspots and 72 percent said they would pay more for it.”

Tellingly, for AT&T and other mobile carriers, the survey found that 85 percent of consumers using a smartphone or tablet “prefer to connect via WiFi over cellular for at least one common online activity;” 83 percent said they “would do more on their device if WiFi were more widely available;” and 87 percent “agreed they want greater WiFi availability for my device.”

For more:
- PC Advisor has this story
- see the release

Related articles:
netTalk rings up record sales for WiFi device; Cincinnati Bell pushing cloud services to SMBs
AT&T’s margins rebound as smartphone sales top 5.5M during Q1
Verizon rolls out latest Novatel LTE-capable MIFi hotspot for $50 

Source:Fierce Telecom

AT&T (NYSE: T) has put the final touches on the sale of its Yellow Pages business, which is known as AT&T Advertising Solutions and AT&T Interactive, to Cerberus Capital, illustrating the ongoing trend of service providers shedding their directory businesses.

Under the terms of the previously announced agreement, AT&T got almost $750 million in cash, a $200 million note and a 47-percent equity interest in the new venture which is called YP Holdings LLC.

The service provider said it expects the sale will have a minimal effect on 2012 earnings, and does not expect to record a material gain or loss.

Selling a major stake in its Yellow Pages business to Cerberus is part of a broader effort to improve what AT&T CFO John Stephens said during the company’s Q1 2012 earnings call “our overall growth profile by looking at opportunities to divest or restructure low performing and non-strategic assets.”

Outside of this sale, AT&T and other fellow ILECs like Verizon (NYSE: VZ) are looking for ways to get rid of their directory businesses.

Citing the growing use of web-based directories, AT&T recently asked the Louisiana Public Service Commission for permission to stop delivering its directory pages to every household in the state.

For more:
- see the release

Related articles:
AT&T sells big portion of its directory business to Cerberus Capital
AT&T hopes to fetch $1.5B by selling stake in its Yellow Pages business
AT&T wants to stop residential white pages delivery in Louisiana
AT&T next-gen business services represent $6.2B wireline revenue stream

Source:Fierce Telecom

While the over-the-top (OTT) online video debate continues to rage, it’s clear that broadcasters, cable operators and telcos see utility in the service. FierceOnlineVideo editor Jim O’Neill examines online video’s impact on the bottom line in his weekly column. Read more…

Source:Fierce Telecom