A major carrier filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The Wallstreet Journal wrote “Two weeks ago, US District Judge Jesse Furman ruled that Windstream violated the covenant on sale-leaseback transactions and awarded the hedge fund a judgment of $310 million plus interest,” the Journal wrote. “The battle highlights a growing practice among hedge funds of searching for instances where a company has violated bond covenants even though the issuer is healthy enough to continue to service and refinance its debt.”
Windstream has $5.6 billion in debt and “has been losing residential and business customers to cable and wireless companies for years,” the Journal noted.
Technology disruption isn’t limited to “shiny new objects”
Disruptive technology is what makes innovation and great advancements possible; it’s also what causes business owners to lose sleep at night. Drawing on wisdom from 1980s, we know that “video killed the radio star!” and email killed the fax machine and PCs killed the typewriter and smartphones killed the … well, what have they not killed?! And who knows what we’ll say ten years from now about the “cloud” and IoT and AI and the disruption they are bringing. Always a challenge, but also an opportunity — anytime there is a shift in the marketplace. Will the bankruptcy and reorganization of a federally subsidized utility be one of those shifts? Time will tell, but at the least, it likely has businesses asking, “how do we adapt to this new world?”
What does this mean to you?
With Windstream’s bankruptcy pending, you may be asking what does this mean for you? Here’s what we know: in some way, your business’ life depends on your access to the internet. Scheduling appointments, recording sales leads, following up with customers, critical documents uploading and downloading to the Cloud … just a few of the things that come to mind. You may be asking yourself the following questions. What will happen to my service? Will my service be shut off? What is the timeline? Will my rates go up? How do I move to another Carrier? Do I need to do anything?
Value of options: Carrier Diversity
From a carrier perspective, you always have options. Our VP of Sales, Michael Gabhart wrote a little about this in a recent LinkedIn Pulse Article. Take a look at Gabby’s article and begin to understand that knowing your options and making sense of the carrier diversity in your service area are big keys. This is where our team can help. With over 800 combined years of industry experience, we can help you navigate the potentially rough waters ahead.
Why Unified Technologies
At the end of the day, this news is a disrupter to the market place. We know that this creates some concern about the stability of your environment, so we want to evaluate where you are. Whether it be your phone system or your carrier services, we can walk you through all the questions that you may have. We are here for your questions and can offer advice and guidance. Unified has remained stable through the tumultuous changes and we’ll be here through this latest change. Give us a call today.
