Back in June Megapath, Covad and Speakeasy announced their plan to merge, a deal that would have been a revolution for residential broadband customers back in 2001. But in 2010, all three companies have turned a cold shoulder on the residential broadband market, and instead primarily focus on the small business market -- making the news less compelling for many users. Still, the newly fused company dropped us a line today to note they've completed their merger, creating a "next generation Managed Services Local Exchange Carrier (MSLEC)." Combined, the company (which will retain the Megapath brand) serves 85,000 business customers.

Megapath and Covad have announced that the two companies will be merging their operations, depending on regulatory approval. According to a company representative, the transaction will create one of the largest managed service local exchange carriers (MSLEC) in the United States.

Cablevision has agreed to join the other ISPs who have signed on to follow NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s new “code of conduct” for getting rid of child porn on the Internet. As we’ve noted the new rules don’t actually change a lot for the ISPs; they’re supposed to block newsgroups and make sure to pull any child porn off of the Internet as fast as possible which most of them were already doing. Cablevision has also added a sublink to the site which allows people to easily report child porn if they see it online. Covad has also agreed to comply with the AG’s “voluntary-but-enforceable” rules after receiving a subpoena about the issue but the company is still working on exactly how it will have to change (if at all) to enforce the code.

A struggling VoIP company everyone thought would be dead by now partners with a CLEC everyone thought would be dead by now to resell broadband. Sound like a good idea to you? Vonage, still trying to dig out of their financial hole, has announced they've partnered with Covad to resell DSL service.

Earlier this month, a Covad insider tipped us off to the fact that the CLEC was shopping itself around to potential sugar daddies, with names like AT&T, Sprint and even Best Buy being tossed around as acquisition partners. In the end, however, it appears that Covad got the best deal from Platinum Equity, who will pay $304 million (or $1.02 per share) for the CLEC. Covad CEO Charles Hoffman waxes optimistic in the company press release:The deal, barring regulatory approval, should close in the second quarter of next year.