Twilio began trading at $15 per share Thursday, a few dollars above the $12 to $14 the cloud software developer proposed in an updated IPO prospectus last week. Twilio offered the shares (see 1605260045) on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “TWLO.” Its shares closed 93.9 percent higher Thursday at $28.79.

The most consistent theme at a one-day conference sponsored by Wells Fargo this week was “plumbing matters,” Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche emailed investors Wednesday. “You need the fiber to do every theme which convergence touches -- data centers, small cells, 5G, fronthaul, backhaul, the list goes on and on.” The timing of 5G remains a question, she wrote. “While Verizon has formed a 5G tech forum and expects fixed wireless tests sometime this year, most other participants expect 5G to have scalable deployments by the end of the decade,” she said. “While there was debate around the physics of millimeter wave's role, the commonly held view was that networks will only become more dense over time.”

Verizon is buying software-as-a-service company Telogis, adding Telogis' product line to its Verizon Telematics subsidiary, the carrier said Tuesday. “With a comprehensive enterprise product portfolio and partnerships with some of the world’s leading vehicle and equipment manufacturers, Telogis brings a world-class software platform and new distribution relationships to Verizon Telematics’ already expansive suite of connected vehicle solutions for consumers and enterprise customers,” said Andrés Irlando, CEO of Verizon Telematics, in a news release. Telogis is closely held. Verizon didn’t disclose terms.

Tower Cloud agreed to an acquisition by Communications Sales and Leasing, CS&L said in a news release Monday. The $230 million cash-and-stock deal is subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions, and is expected to close by early Q4, it said. The deal expands CS&L’s backhaul network and entry into small-cell and dark-fiber businesses, said CS&L President Kenny Gunderman. In a separate news release Monday, CS&L said it plans to sell nearly 14.7 million shares of common stock. Before the sale, the company’s former parent Windstream will exchange the shares, which comprise its entire remaining position in the company’s common stock, for indebtedness of Windstream with certain creditors in a debt-for-equity exchange, it said. After that exchange, Citigroup will acquire the shares from creditors, it said.

Rural phone companies like UniTel lack the financial wherewithal to compete with New Charter, and the FCC's overbuild condition on Charter Communications' buying Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks will particularly hurt the goal of universal service, UniTel said in a filing Tuesday in docket 15-149 in support of NTCA's petition to reconsider. That group is one of several parties petitioning the FCC on its New Charter order (see 1606100043). UniTel said it already competes with TWC and would be directly affected by any buildout since New Charter will put money into TWC efforts to pick up lower-cost customers of incumbent rural carriers, resulting in less UniTel ability to sustain universal service and capacity to invest in its network and services. It said the agency should expressly confine any buildout condition to areas not served by small rural phone companies.

The role of technical support is changing amid connected homes, said Parks Associates analyst Patrice Samuels on a webcast with Emily Rickman, Support.com vice president-services sales and account management. An increasingly competitive landscape is making support a bigger priority to brands, Samuels said Tuesday. Some companies let customers use smartphones for diagnostic purposes, said Rickman of Support.com, which has customers including Comcast and Staples. Cable connections with smart TVs have benefited from smartphone diagnostics, said Rickman. “Sometimes, it takes putting eyes on it. Using the camera to quickly and easily do that is by far a better customer experience than having to schedule a truck to come out to the home -- and in some cases days, later, with a four-to-five-hour window" of a consumer's day, she said. Ease of getting to a tech support agent is an area where consumers aren't satisfied, said Samuels. A start is with “self-healing” options on desktop PCs and mobile devices, said Rickman. Although data breaches have gotten attention from high-profile hacks of Home Depot, Target and others, Rickman said, “Very few customers changed their shopping habits because of them.” Customer onboarding can help overcome “inertia,” she said, providing steps people can take to improve security.

The FCC Tuesday solicited applications for membership on its Consumer Advisory Committee. The committee is expected to be rechartered with a new two-year term to start Oct. 22, the FCC said in a notice. Applications are due July 25. The CAC met last week at the FCC (see 1606100066).

CenturyLink reached further into the cloud with an acquisition of startup ElasticBox. The deal closed Monday; no terms were disclosed, a CenturyLink spokesman said. ElasticBox, which has offices in San Francisco and Madrid, helps enterprises deploy and manage apps across a variety of cloud platforms, CenturyLink said in a news release. It "enhances CenturyLink's development and deployment of multi-cloud services management capabilities, as well as our ability to deliver end-to-end network and hybrid IT services to business customers globally,” said CenturyLink Chief Technology Officer Aamir Hussain.

Richard Bennett, free-market blogger and network architect, explained his concerns about FCC-proposed ISP privacy rules, in a meeting with an aide to Chairman Tom Wheeler and others at the agency. “I reiterated my concern about the overly-concentrated nature of the Internet’s advertising market and how this has led to high prices and poor quality ads,” Bennett said in a filing in docket 16-106. “I stressed the importance of regulating on the nature of the sensitivity of information rather than on the nature of the industry that collects it.” A sharply divided FCC approved a privacy NPRM March 31 (see 1603310049).

The FCC Communications Security, Reliability and Interoperability Council will meet at 1 p.m. June 22 in the Commission Meeting Room at commission HQ, the agency said in a notice Monday. It said the CSRIC is to vote on reports on the emergency alert system, submarine cable resiliency, network timing, cybersecurity information sharing and the priority services framework.