Gossip

More debts than assets?

It's no secret that times are hard in the big carrier business but it may be a secret just how hard they are.

Here's hoping that the telcos of the UK have good libel lawyers. They're going to have to sue a lot of people, though, judging by how widespread is the rumour that one of the country's biggest bandwidth providers is trading "in the expectation of Government intervention to ensure their survival."

Of course it's possible that Sniffer's sources simply don't pass messages about this Government intervention on the Ethernet. Just because we haven't heard of any such plan doesn't mean it isn't being cooked up. And so it's quite conceivable that the Government is aware of the problems of this large organisation, and has made unofficial undertakings that "we won't let you collapse, old boy!" to its chief financial officer.

Let's hope that this is true. It would be a real shame if it turned out that a respectable corporation was mistaken about the Government's willingness to bail them out, and was subsequently accused of trading insolvently ...