Covad
| Covad Communications Group, Inc.
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|---|---|
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| legal form | Incorporated |
| founding | 1996 |
| Seat | San Jose , United States |
| management |
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| Branch | telecommunications |
| Website | www.covad.com |
Covad Communications Group, Inc. is a communications company for the US market founded by Charles McMinn and Dhruv Khanna in the 1990s and headquartered in San José , California .
The name Covad is short for Converged Voice and Data . This was intended to express the company's corporate purpose, namely to transmit voice and data together in a network.
The company operates mainly as a broadband internet provider for small and medium-sized companies, as well as a DSL provider. After acquiring GoBeam in 2004 , it also offers voice over IP (VoIP) telephone services. Covad is a CLEC (Competitive Local Exchange Carrier), i.e. a communications service provider that competes with the dominant telecommunications companies in the US market such as AT&T , Verizon and Qwest .
This competition was largely created by the regulation of the telecommunications market during President Bill Clinton's administration , and expressed in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (TA96). Since President George W. Bush took office in 2000, however, there has been a change in policy that has also been reflected in telecommunications regulation by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission). Since then, the influence of the CLECs has waned, that of the dominant telecommunications companies has increased. As a result, the competitive situation for Covad has deteriorated.
Covad has approx. 1400 employees (as of 2005).
