Alfa has been buying telecommunications and consumer goods businesses since selling most of its oil assets to BP for $3.9 billion.
Mr. Zoll has been a telecommunications engineer for 34 years, recently as a contractor in and around New York City, and before that in Washington.
Centennial, based in Neptune, N.J., has been acquiring telecommunications assets to offer one source for TV, long-distance and wireless services in Caribbean nations.
However, it was then that the orbiting Rosetta satellite, which has been relaying telecommunications from the probe, passed over the horizon and out of contact.
Utility reform, new technologies and new business models could be as transformative in energy as the mobile phone has been in telecommunications.
"Verizon NJ has been upgrading its telecommunications facilities in large portions of its telecommunications service territory so that cable television services may be provided over these facilities.
Several members of Congress, including Representative Henry A. Waxman, a California Democrat who has been active in telecommunications legislation, praised Mr. Genachowski's tenure.
"We have a group of brokers that has been working with telecommunications, media and Internet companies the last nine years," he said.
The Newark-based IDT, which specializes in wholesale long-distance and prepaid calling cards, has been seeking distressed telecommunications start-ups.
Mr. Manishin, whose firm represents America Online, has been immersed in telecommunications law since serving as an antitrust lawyer for the Justice Department during the breakup of AT&T.
