MegaPath Inc. and Covad Communications Co. have recently announced their intentions to merge, with Pat Bennett as the CEO of the resulting combination. D. Craig Young, the current MegaPath Inc., will be the Executive Chairman.  This move as the companies appear to say, will create one of the largest managed service local exchange carriers in the nation. The price paid is not public knowledge. Together they offer ethernet, DSL, T1, security, VPN, security, SIP trunking, integrated access, and voice and other Internet services.

“The merger creates an interesting company that will provide an enhanced full suite of comprehensive services to the Enterprise market.  It’s actually the right move for both companies.  COVAD immediately expands its product portfolio while MegaPath gains direct access to a network infrastructure that enables it to further expand its services, obtain greater network control and reduced costs, allowing the company to remain competitive to its end-user enterprise market.  I am interested to see how quickly the companies integrate, as that usually is the issue with mergers of this caliber, for instance, when Global Telecom & Technology (GTT) acquired WBS Connect in December 2009, the companies were fully integrated within a month, ” stated stated Ilissa Miller, Managing Partner of Jaymie Scotto & Associates.

Regarding smaller enterprises merging, Brian K. West of the FreeSWITCH project said, “I think that’s awesome. Many of these smaller providers won’t be able to compete unless they reach a certain size. We would rather see two small providers each with innovative services join forces to create a more competitive entity than have those same two providers be swallowed up by one of the giant incumbents.”

KeyOn Communications Holdings Inc., a large wireless broadband and VoIP services provider in the USA has taken advantage of the improved economy and the current trend of hosted providers as the new CLECs has used acquisition as one success method of having  50,000 square miles that cover almost 2,500,000 customers in its footprint.  

Word is that Cisco will soon complete its acquisition of Tandberg. BroadSoft recently filed its initial public offering with potential for $103.5 million. SkyTerra Communications plans to complete a deal with Harbinger are as of March 30, 2010 a reality.  Viper Networks, Inc began a 50/50 partnership with India’s BSNL (one of the top providers of telecom in India). Bharti Airtel not long ago, acquired Zain Telecom’s African operations at 9 billion USD, not a tiny figure. Metaswitch bought AppTrigger, a service broker, and Oracle bought service broker vendor Convergin. 

With all the excitement, no one is becoming complacent in the IP communications and related industries.  Watch the TMCnet videos of movers and shakers at CTIA Wireless 2010 in Las Vegas.