Michael was always at the front of the room asking questions. He really knew his stuff and the vendors always appreciated that. In addition he was an exceedingly nice person who raised a great family and at the end of the day that matters more than his skills as an analyst.

Chief Analyst Camille Mendler, one of our many inspirational #womenintech, will be speaking at Network X #Amsterdam this October. Join her session for insights on leveraging WiFi, 5G and cloud to deliver enterprise services. Learn more: bit.ly/3BijJ6T #diversityintech

Colleagues Ian Grant and Kathryn Weldon are presenting on Thursday about Industrial IoT Platform as a Service. x.com/CurrentAnalysi…

Windstream to acquire EarthLink in an all-stock transaction. Interesting combination - both hidden gems, challenges. news.windstream.com/article_displa…

Consolidated Comm's is going to acquire FairPoint - for about $560m stock and a whole lotta debt. consolidated.com/about-us/news/…

FCC sets $40.3B target for Round 3 of 600 MHz auction rcrwireless.com/20161202/polic… In other news, I asked Santa for a Silver Snoopy this year.

Finally, Verizon has closed its deal to divest its global data centers -- Equinix is the buyer, natch. equinix.com/newsroom/press…

Windstream becomes the latest provider to add managed SD-WAN service; launches with integrated IP/MPLS WAN gateways. news.windstream.com/article_displa…

Hughes launches its own managed SD-WAN capabilities, drawing on dual-path (satellite/terrestrial) expertise. hughes.com/company/newsro…

HPE and CSC officially launch together today as DXC Technology (stands for "Digital Cross Communication"?) dxc.technology

AT&T demonstrates open source switch via multiple suppliers: serious candidate or vendor negotiating leverage? about.att.com/story/white_bo…

After the U.S. election results I stated: "net neutrality is a goner". FCC's Ajit Pai is charting the course: reuters.com/article/us-usa…

Our own Erik Erik M. Keith on the job. x.com/Technology_GD/…

Someone outbid AT&T's $1.25 billion offer for LMDS spectrum holder Straight Path (Reuters believes it's Verizon). reuters.com/article/straig…

Busy days in the ICT world. First, Cisco to get a new SD-WAN platform by buying Viptela. newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-…

Next, @VZEnterprise completes sale of 29 data centers in the Americas (mostly U.S.) to Equinix, Inc. as planned...

Then @CenturyLinkEnt completes sale of its 57 global data centers to an investment consortium...

What else? How about @VZEnterprise agreeing to sell its cloud & hosting assets to IBM Hybrid Cloud & Infrastructure? Many big moves and it's only Tuesday...

SSID fun at #clus. No, that isn't my SSID.

.MetTel, Tangoe and Brian Washburn weigh in on #SDWAN. goo.gl/fb/LMtrmH