Word: phoning
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...cost about a dollar back in 1988,the same year I read Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities, a truthful book about the hard social and political realities of New York. I read most of it "on site" in my call room at Harlem Hospital. One night, the phone in that room rang and I was told to come down to the Emergency Room fast. They had a 16-year-old boy there who was bleeding to death; his leg had been run over by a subway train. He was, the voice said before hanging up, a token sucker...
...complained, for example, that a cable company could charge it much higher fees if it wants to run as fast as other competing sites. Bloggers warn that a broadband company could even restrict or slow down access to sites that express political viewpoints they disagree with. Cable and phone companies like BellSouth argue that since they?ve built these high-speed networks they should have the ability to charge higher rates for companies like Google (which is not exactly struggling financially) that use lots of bandwidth, but insist they would not use such fees to stifle political views...
...bidding war that erupted two weeks ago for PCCW, Hong Kong's largest telecommunications company, might strike some as bizarre. After all, fixed-line phone operators are plagued by low growth, ferocious competition and disruptive Internet technologies, making them hard to love?and PCCW is no exception. In the past six years, its stock price has crashed by 65%; last year, PCCW's consolidated revenue for its telecom operations crawled up by a paltry 1%. But if there's one positive thing to be said for such businesses, it's that they're dependable generators of cash. "Fixed-line companies...
...that's exactly why Macquarie Bank has reportedly offered more than $7 billion to buy PCCW's phone and media assets. The Australian investment bank has built a global empire in large part by packaging the least glamorous of acquisitions?such as toll roads and airports?into fixed-income funds, which are then sold to yield-hungry retail investors. Lately, the company's concept of an infrastructure play has broadened and its pursuit of acquisitions has grown increasingly audacious?earlier this year it mounted a $2.6 billion bid for the London Stock Exchange. That failed, but the bank's ability...
...Adding PCCW to this expanding portfolio may prove trickier. The news that Macquarie was negotiating with PCCW chairman Richard Li, son of Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, for his telecom business (which includes a mobile-phone operation and a promising Internet-TV venture) immediately drew a rival bid from private-equity firm Texas Pacific Group and its Asian affiliate, Newbridge Capital Group. Not only does Macquarie have a rival suitor, but the Chinese government may also fatally complicate the deal. That's because China Network Communications Group, one of China's state-owned telephone companies, has a 20% stake...