S&P Downgrades The Telephone Industry

Telecomweb reports that "Standard & Poor’s this morning downgraded the credit ratings of a majority of U.S. Tier One wireline carriers – a move it says affects more than $100 billion in aggregate debt held by the likes of Verizon, the “new” AT&T, BellSouth and others – citing the challenge of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and, particularly, triple-play offerings from cable companies." "five other companies were placed on “CreditWatch with negative implications” – AT&T (the former SBC), BellSouth, CenturyTel, Cingular Wireless LLC (because it is jointly owned by AT&T and BellSouth) and Telecomunicaciones de Puerto Rico, which is majority-owned by Verizon." This will dampen the BOCs ability to get easy capital to build out FTTH.