| 200 New Exchanges as Tiscali Revitalizes |
| Written by Dave Burstein |
 Tiscali is installing UTStarcom DSLAMs in 200 more Italian exchanges, Ray Le Maistre reports. Good to see them coming back; Italy has weak competition and generally high prices. Founder Renato Soru was worth $4B in 2001 when Tiscali was one of Europe's largest ISPs. All that's left is 600,000 Italian customers, about two-thirds in their 486 unbundled exchanges. Most of the new exchanges will start out with more than one hundred customers and the savings from unbundling should pay back the investment in months.
Tiscali is a prime example of how smaller ISP mostly are being forced from the market. Between 2005 and 2007, Tiscali sold off branches in Austria, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, France and Germany as the company bled cash. The UK with 1M customers was their last stronghold beyond Italy, but even that wasn't enough to reach breakeven. They sold to CW this spring.Also good to see a nice contract for UTStarcom, who have been quiet in DSL for some time. |
