2020 started off with a bang as you lined up to read about some pretty controversial doings in the channel.

Still muddling its way through chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Windstream caught the ire of those who think $19 million in bonuses to a handful of key executives is a little much. AT&T got on its union’s bad side with another chunk of layoffs as it continues to modernize its network. And CenturyLink paid up some hefty settlements due to what some state attorneys general describe as “deceptive” practices. Verizon discontinued more copper facilities in one of the largest states of the union and Avaya’s shift to the cloud means cutting off sales of a popular product.

But not all of the news was that edgy. Telarus makes our list for a number of key hires, most notably bringing in a UC and contact center expert who used to work for a rival.

But which story was No. 1?

Our top 12, outlined in the gallery below, is a collection of those articles and features that drew the most traffic to our site and performed best in our weekly newsletters. If you haven’t signed up for that yet, what’s stopping you?

Missed the previous month’s top stories? Click here to see our most-read posts in December or here for our top stories of 2019.

Follow executive editor @Craig_Galbraith on Twitter.