It's a set of tools that allows large enterprises ranging from Comcast and PayPal to stock exchanges and telecom providers to run their own AWS-like cloud services inside their data centers.
It also included data exchanges MAE-West and PAIX, or Palo Alto Internet Exchange, facilities where telecom carriers hand off Internet traffic to each other.
The antique numbers, based on the location of telecom exchanges, can still be found on old signs.
"It's the kind of deal that leaves you confused as far as the valuation of the shares exchanged," says Dan Ross, telecom analyst at Sanders Morris Harris in Houston.
Each trade is anonymous.Buying voice minutes through an exchange means that each telecoms carrier gets the best deal on every call, and is spared the hassle of setting up bilateral agreements with other carriers in parts of the world where it has no infrastructure itself.
Angolan companies own the equivalent of 3.8% of companies listed on Portugal's stock exchange, from banks to telecoms and energy, it says.
Since then, the company—renamed China Mobile has become the world's largest mobile-phone operator and a blue chip on Hong Kong's stock exchange.This week, another mainland telecoms company called China Telecom (CT) came to Hong Kong, hoping to repeat this performance.
The internet came together to crowdfund billboards exposing members of Congress who have taken massive campaign contributions from telecom companies in exchange for their support.
UtiliCorp's United Energy has also been laying fiber-optic cable in Australia and is considering spinning off these assets to take advantage of the hot worldwide market for telecom CLECs (competitive local exchange carriers).
Band-X, Elliott's one-year-old startup effort, is the world's first web-based exchange for buyers and sellers of international telecom capacity, and wholesales both long distance minutes and bandwidth.
