"This represents the first major consolidation since the deregulation of Post, Telephone and Telegraph monopolies in Europe," says George Brandon, editor of Telecommunications Report Daily, an offshoot of the oldest and most respected telecommunications newsletter.
This figure is at odds with the more widely cited number of 300,000 a year, which is disclosed in the annual telecommunications interception reports made by the attorney general's departments.
Lastly, the five telecommunications companies reported somehow better on the community involvement theme than all the other categories.
Teléfonos de Mexico, Mexico's largest telecommunications company, reported that profit grew 10.3percentt in 2003, to $2 billion.
Ericsson, a Swedish telecommunications company, reported a third-quarter loss of $350 million in 2001.
Alcatel-Lucent, the French-American telecommunications company, reported on Tuesday that its first-quarter loss more than doubled from a year ago.
AT&T, the telecommunications company, reported second-quarter results on Wednesday that contained signs that the weak economy was catching up to its previously steady results.
Many phone subscribers could not get through to Europe, regional telecommunications operators reported, as they raced to reroute their traffic to alternative lanes.
The maker of chips that run networking and telecommunications equipment reported fourth-quarter profit that exceeded the average estimate of analysts surveyed by First Call/Thomson Financial.
Stocks rose yesterday, finishing their first winning week in seven, as computer-related and telecommunications companies reported faster-than-expected profit or sales growth.
Huawei, which ranks behind only Ericsson of Sweden in telecommunications equipment, reported an unaudited net profit of 15.4 billion renminbi, or $2.5 billion, up from 11.6 billion renminbi in 2011, as new telecommunications projects and smartphones increased sales.
