Verizon is reportedly close to a deal to buy fiber provider Frontier Communications. On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal said an announcement could come as early as this week, provided discussions “don’t run into any last-minute roadblocks.” Frontier has a market value of more than $7 billion and offers broadband at nearly three million locations in 25 states. The company would help Verizon boost its Fios Fiber network and better compete with AT&T.
The carrier has seen wireless revenues shrink and sees fiber investment as a growth area. Acquiring companies with existing infrastructure like Frontier is potentially less costly and time-consuming than rolling out its own network. Based in Dallas, Frontier is currently upgrading its copper landline system to fiber — which could enable it to offer 5Gbps symmetrical plans.
The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020. As the WSJ describes it, it focused on “leaner business” before it became concerned that it would run out of money before it could complete its current upgrades.
The FTC sued the company in 2021 for misrepresenting its speed. Under the 2022 settlement, Frontier was to stop lying about its internet performance, pay more than $8.5 million and install fiber service to 60,000 California homes over four years.
Google has decided to invest another billion in Anthropic, four sources told the Financial Times, bringing its total sunk costs to more than three billion dollars. Both companies have declined to comment. Google uses Anthropic’s cloud AI model on Vertex AI, an AI-powered development platform.
Amazon has also invested four billion in Anthropic to integrate its cloud AI model into the next generation of Alexa speakers. Other sources say Anthropic is in talks with Lightspeed Venture Partners to raise another two billion. This investment would value Anthropic at 60 billion. Still, investors do not believe Anthropic or its rivals will be profitable soon due to the excessive cost of developing AI models.
Google invented Transformers in 2017, a type of neural network that became a backbone technology for AI models. Despite some success with models like Gemini, Imagen, Chirp, Veo and more, Google does not have as significant a foothold in the generative AI market.
So many big tech companies backing AI start-ups worried the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which investigated Google parent Alphabet’s earlier $2.3 billion investment in Anthropic.
However, as the Financial Times notes, FTC Commissioner Lina Khan, who had a reputation as an aggressive antitrust enforcer, has resigned from her position as head of the agency after the Trump regime came to power, which could mean that similar deals may not be subject to the same scrutiny in the future.