NStar Electric to cut rate for large business users
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THE REGION NStar Electric is cutting power rates 21.2 percent for 3,600 big commercial and industrial customers April 1. The Boston utility said the rate change for customers who use over 25,000 kilowatt-hours monthly will cut prices to 10.147 cents per kilowatt hour from 12.803 cents now, separate from an additional charge for delivery that is not changing. The big ...
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National Semiconductor Corp. NSM.N  on Thursday said it would cut about 6 percent of its work force  to reduce costs amid a chip supply glut and it will book  severance charges of between $22 million and $26 million for  the move.
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The job cuts are a part of the company&#39;s efforts to shift its focus to business services and cut costs amid the competitive long-distance telephone services market.
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Npower becomes the latest firm to announce cuts to residential fuel bills after the fall in wholesale gas prices.
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Residential customers of National Grid USA , the biggest Massachusetts electric utility, face an average rate increase of 13.1 percent, or $10 a month, starting Nov. 1, under rates National Grid requested yesterday.
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Facing continued top-line weakness, the company may have to cut costs.
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EarthLink Inc  said on Tuesday it will cut about 900 jobs, or nearly half its staff, as part of a restructuring to reduce costs at the Internet service provider.
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The AT&amp;T Corporation, the nation&#39;s largest long-distance provider, said yesterday that it would eliminate more than 20 percent of its work force this year and write off $11.
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Energy customers are urged to switch suppliers after Npower follows the lead of rival British Gas by announcing big price increases.
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The San Diego-based maker of data storage products said in a statement that it plans to cut 145 regular and temporary personnel worldwide, and will incur restructuring charges of between $5 million and $7 million.
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Business & money: Firm will raise electricity rates by 9.7% and gas prices by 15% from tomorrow
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Star Gas Partners LP said Monday that a &quot;substantial decline&quot; in earnings at its heating oil division would force it to cease distributions on its common partnership units and could result in the company seeking bankruptcy protection.
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In a move that could help small and medium-size businesses save money, telecom carrier XO Communications has rolled out a new pricing model for VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) services based on the bandwidth a business uses, instead of the number of lines.The pricing model, announced Wednesday along with expansion of XO&#39;s VoIP offerings, allows U.S. business customers to set a price based on an IP port speed ranging from 1.5Mbps to 45Mbps, instead of the number of lines used. There are additional costs for long-distance calling plans and additional features.&quot;With IP, voice is just another application over the IP backbone,&quot; said Nic Jackson, XO&#39;s director of voice and converged services. &quot;When we put a T1 [connection] out to the customer premise, it really doesn&#39;t matter to us, or to the customer really, how they use that T1, as long as they have enough bandwidth to manage their voice and data needs. Why would we price differently for a voice channel vs. a data channel? It just doesn&#39;t make sense in this new IP world.&quot;Pricing starts at about $400 to $550 a month for 1.5Mbps service, depending on location and based on a three-year contract, Jackson said. A basic long-distance calling plan would cost an additional $60 a month. XO also offers one-year and five-year contracts.The new pricing model could cut costs for companies, particularly small and medium-size businesses, said Lisa Pierce, an analyst with Forrester Research. For a T1 line, a business with volume of about 54 calls per hour would be necessary for the XO pricing to make sense, she said.&quot;It looks like a pretty good deal,&quot; Pierce said.However, businesses interested in the plan should inquire whether the service is being provided over XO&#39;s own backbone or whether the carrier is buying access from others, Pierce said. In some cases, the rented network access can cause outages, she said.In addition, businesses should have a good idea about their current and future voice use before signing a contract based on bandwidth, Pierce recommended. &quot;They need to really have a handle on their traffic to do that,&quot; she said. &quot;And a lot of companies don&#39;t.&quot;XO will help customers determine their bandwidth needs, Jackson said. The bandwidth pricing can help simplify customer decisions about what kind of calling services they need, she said.In addition, XO, in Herndon, Virginia, announced it has expanded two of its VoIP offerings.The company has launched its XO IP Flex service, which allows customers to use traditional PBXes or multiline, key telephone systems to connect to XO&#39;s VoIP services. The new service, which replaces XO&#39;s XOptions Flex offering, includes unlimited site-to-site calling, voicemail and dynamic bandwidth allocation, allowing full use of the IP circuit for data when voice lines are idle. IP Flex also offers bandwidth of up to 10M bps, compared to 3M bps under the old service, Jackson said.XO also announced the nationwide availability of its IP SIP VoIP service, which delivers voice and data services to businesses with IP PBX systems over a single connection. XO launched IP SIP in October in six U.S. markets.&quot;What this means is a much broader portfolio than we had, say 18 months ago,&quot; Jackson said.
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NovaStar Financial Inc  said on Tuesday that it would eliminate 275 jobs and slash direct mortgage lending to preserve cash after it was forced to cancel a $101.2 million rights offering, and its shares fell 14 percent.
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By The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.  Sep. 10--Adding a fee to utility bills   The state's consumer advocate has concluded that higher electricity rates could be in your best interest.   And yes, there is a method to the madness.
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Enterasys Networks Inc. , which makes computer networking equipment, said it will cut 115 jobs, or 12 percent of its workforce, to save $9.5 million annually after posting 14 straight quarterly losses. The firings will lead to charges in the fourth quarter of 2004 and in the first quarter of this year of $3.5 million to $3.8 million, the Andover-based ...
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No. 1 automaker&#39;s plan may affect 20% of European work force as it aims to save $500Ma year. FRANKFURT  - General Motors, the world&#39;s largest automaker, is expected to unveil a plan this week to cut