C1 Vivendi Looks for New Path Vivendi Universal's plan to sell $9.8 billion worth of properties could end its global aspirations and return the company to its French roots along with a few critical businesses in telecommunications, pay-TV and waste management.
Telecommunications companies pay some of the biggest dividends on the market, and they slumped Wednesday as AT&T and Verizon prepared to pay out billions of dollars in dividends.
Telecommunications companies pay $1,000 or more a month to lease the steeples, creating welcome revenue for congregations.
The supposedly new strategy for Vivendi Universal, outlined yesterday by Jean-René Fourtou, the chief executive, focuses on telecommunications, French pay TV and American media.
For the major players, it is also a fight over the allocation of billions of dollars of access fees that telecommunications companies pay one another for access to one another's lines.
Washington is demanding an immediate 41percentt reduction in the fees that telecommunications companies pay to hook up to the network owned by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, the former government-owned telephone monopoly that is a member of the NTT Group.
The plan could lead to higher fees for consumers on their telephone landlines because the commission also approved changes in the complex compensation system by which telecommunications companies pay one another for completing or carrying calls on one another's systems.
The Home segment renders fixed wireline telecommunications services, pay television, and data and internet services to home customers.
Indeed, for several quarters Moonves has trumpeted retransmission fees - an industry term for how much cable, satellite and telecommunications operators pay broadcast networks to carry the channel - which bring in sizable revenue.
Its focus on coal, education, oil and telecommunications has "paid rich dividends," he said.
