Level 3 Communications today announced it would purchase Global Crossing for about $1.9 billion. Both of these companies are long-haul Internet backbone providers, which do the majority of transiting of information between Internet Service Providers (in the form of last-mile access), content providers and customers.
A content provider such as Yahoo! may have their information run over long-haul backbone providers where the information eventually links up to a Comcast-type ISP which delivers that information to a customer at their home or place of business.
As the new story points out, there are seven long-haul networks in the U.S. and this deal is expected "to ease the decline in long-haul pricing," meaning this could result in higher costs to customers or consumers because of consolidation.
Granted, the Level3/Global Crossing merger will only result in a 3.3% market share of long-haul customers, as opposed to a 45% market share of wireless customers for the AT&T/T-Mobile purchase, but shouldn't the same people who had a knee-jerk reaction to the telecom sale also share the same concerns with today's announcement? We will have one less competitor in an expensive and sparsely-populated marketplace.
Or, should we encourage innovation through voluntary agreements that could result in a better aligning of resources and assets in order to streamline information throughput to consumers, thereby enhancing their experience?