Qwest protests SBC-AT&T merger as harmful to competition

Tue Apr 19 19:08:51 UTC 2005

On Tue, 19 Apr 2005, Alex Rubenstein wrote:

> That may be, but they are right.

If Qwest would have won the bid, then it would be up to Verizon to cry 
foul - and rest assured they would.  Funny how that works :-)

> Do you think anyone will benefit from Verizon+MCI? After this merger, the 
> incumbent ILEC in a huge market area will also own the only real CAP 
> (remember Brooks and MFS?). Isn't it bizarre that it is possible that a 
> regulated LEC will also own an unregulated CAP, which currently competes 
> (vigorously, I might add) with the LEC?
>
> Do you think anyone will benefit from ATT+SBC?

No.  I didn't (and don't) agree with SBC+ATT, Verizon+MCI, or Qwest+MCI,
if that one would have happened.

Verizon will also get to expand their portfol-- er... patchwork of 
unrelated provisioning systems, engineering, support organizations with 
no less than 4 or 5 dozen different access numbers to call for support or
troubleshooting, depending on what you want.  MCI never fully integrated
the MFS assets (MFS was bought _how_ many years ago???), and Verizon's 
track record for integration is no better.

Bottom line: don't count on any economies of scale to come from this 
merger.

> Both mergers stink to high heaven. And we can probably rest assured that the 
> FCC does not have the consumers' best interest in mind.

They haven't for quite a long time.

jms