Nearly a year after announcing the deal, AT&T (NYSE:T) has received US Justice Department clearance to purchase Centennial Communications (NASDAQ:CYCL) in exchange for divesting eight markets in Louisiana and Mississippi, five of which Verizon Wireless (NYSE:VZ, NYSE:VOD) has already agreed to buy. The FCC still has to sign off on the $944 million deal, but AT&T said it expects to close the transaction this quarter, adding about 1 million subscribers to its rolls in the Midwest, Southeast, US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. more

Equipment vendors are beginning to unveil new optical and carrier Ethernet products in advance of next week’s Supercomm trade show. more

If you can’t beat them, buy them. Rather than compete with the spry Starent Networks (NASDAQ:STAR) in the mobile packet core space, Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) has decided to acquire them, announcing today Starent has accepted a $3 billion offer to purchase its outstanding shares. more