Tech acquisition: Monroe-based CenturyLink has announced it acquired assets from the Massachusetts company formally known as Active Broadband Networks, a provider in software-based broadband networking. According to a news release, the acquisition helps CenturyLink to automate its network, move network functions into the cloud and offer software-defined networking and network functions virtualization services to customers. The price of the deal was not disclosed. “Moving services into the cloud, particularly at the network edge, is essential as we continue to focus on providing our customers with a wide variety of virtualized network functions that help them more effectively manage their business,” Aamir Hussain, CenturyLink’s executive vice president and chief technology officer, says in a statement.
Trending upward: Americans went shopping this spring, increasing their spending in May for the second straight month and delivering good news for economic growth, The Associated Press reports. The Commerce Department announced this morning that consumer spending increased 0.4% in May on top of a 1.1% surge in April. Spending on durable goods such as autos and appliances grew 0.6%, down from a 2.6% jump in April. Spending on nondurable goods, such as food and clothing, grew 0.5%. And spending on services grew just 0.1%. The overall numbers underscore that consumer spending, which accounts for about 70% of U.S. economic activity, picked up in the spring after getting off to a slow start in 2016.
A new course: BP will send the first LNG tanker through the expanded Panama Canal in late July, Bloomberg reports. The British Merchant will begin its journey in Trinidad & Tobago before heading to the canal for passage to the Pacific Ocean, according to an emailed statement Bloomberg received from the Panama Canal Authority on Tuesday. The tanker, which has a capacity of 138,517 cubic meters of gas, is already anchored in the Caribbean, shipping data compiled by Bloomberg show. The $5.3 billion expansion will allow the waterway to handle the kind of massive tankers that transport LNG for the first time. The shorter trade route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans will help cut costs after global LNG prices plunged in the past two years because of lower oil prices, rising supply and softening demand.
