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U.S. DOJ Moves To Block MCI/Sprint Merger
Janthkin writes: "It seems the U.S. isn't going to allow MCI and Sprint to merge after all, so they WON'T be creating 'a telecommunications and Internet giant, one that would carry more data traffic than any other carrier and that would have left the U.S. long-distance market with only two major competitors instead of three.' (Text from the Standard story here). CNN coverage here." The U.S. side of the merger is not completely ruled out, but this seems a strong blow against it.
Just FYI, Bernie Ebbers was a PE major in college :)
Be scared: in Britain big companies are already more powerful than the government, because it's illegal to slander them but legal to slander the government. Or maybe 'slander' is the wrong word to use, but that's basically the situation. Those of us who remember the 'What's Wrong With MacDonalds' court case (sorry, don't know of any useful links re that) live in fear of a Gibson-esque world full of 'Free Economic Zones' instead of states/countries whatever.
Governments must ensure that businesses are forced to answer to the same rules, and accept the same annoyances, as the rest of us. Economy is great, but economy with no social conscience is a sure-fire path to an anti-utopian world.
(Rant mode off)
I work for a company that is also merging with another, translation, being swallowed, by a Baby Bell. Hint, it rhymes with HORIZON.
It also sucks to know that the company that I work for has taken it upon itself to sue one of my favorite web sites, 2600.com for 'patent and copyright infringement'. However it's nothing compared to what that east coast bell is going to do to us.
1) cubicle size is based solely on salary band, nice way to keep people feeling good about themselves.
2) bonuses are given to salespeople only, no longer to techs like me, even though I make sure that those bonehead salespeople have machines that work so they can sell-Sell-SELL!!
3)Their kind of wisdom has already struck, right after the merger was announced and jobs went on the line, they fired everyone in the finance dept lacally, but kept the managers/directors since they had been doing such a good job.
Mark my words, in 5, no 10 years we will be back to ONE phone company, providing long distance, local, and highspeed wireless internet access. Divestiture will happen again, but next time will the govt be smart like Judge Jackson from the M$ case was? this isnt a direct quote but it went something like this: "No subsequent entity of said broken company is allowed to re-merge, again, EVER.
The phone industry grew in leaps and bounds because of Ma Bell getting the axe, let's keep it that way.
-posted anonymously for my own protection, as well
Forgot to post anonymously, eh tiger?
The only problem now is that WorldCom is really starting to get its hooks into UUNET (we were fairly separate until recently). Thus you have ISP techies being treated like telco monkeys.
As a result of this a lot of very experienced people who have been with UUNET for a couple of years are leaving UUNET. This isn't limited to the US either - its happening where ever UUNET has a presence. UUNET HR is sufficently crap that no one is being hired to replace them.
UUNET is starting to suck big time from an employee point of view - a lot of people are only staying on for share options (which stop being worth anything next year)
Yea, it's only for a very short distance, but MCI/Worldcom runs the MAEs. Does that not count as carrying the traffic. At least part of the way? There must be half a dozen MAEs, of which two, MAE-East and MAE-West, carry up to 2 or 3 gig per second each, IIRC. So, the MAEs, plus all the long haul services of Worldcom might just get them near 50%.
My point is that the government is not always the people anymore
Not always? Try never. Anybody who thinks otherwise is, IMO, naive.
I don't think the bean counters or shareholders read that study, nor do they give a rat's ass about your socialist crap. basically, it doesn't even really matter if the employees really are or aren't more productive, even in the short term. It's all in how the market perceives the company's health and efficiency, it's all in PR and spin. And if you can make the case for a 10% price increase in your stock by publicly sacrificing a chunk of your workforce - even if it's really a BAD thing for the company, the perception drives the stock prices, and the stock prices drive the board members.
I'm not FOR longer workweeks. I have a family with kids too. I'm just trying to point out why things happen the way they do, and who is running things in this country.
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
You may call it mismanagement. From your perspective, it was. But from the bean counters' perspective, it was trimming fat. If you aren't working 55 hours, you're not pulling your weight. What's so hard about that?
Yes, there are more subtle and elegant ways to improve employee productivity. But sometimes, cracking the whip is what gets the investors' jizz spurting.
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
sure, give them 56k modems, but make them use crappy lines that only support 33k connections, and disconnect at random.
Punk-ass bitches.
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
seems to me that there's relatively lots of competition in telecom. sure they have uunet but so what? internet 2 is coming and there are alot of players there. plus sprint is wireless! what's the big deal?
--
J Perry Fecteau, 5-time Mr. Internet
Ejercisio Perfecto: from Geek to GOD in WEEKS!
--
And Justice for None
in the comic book, grendel, this is exactly what happenned. i remember reading it a few years back and thinking to myself, "this could really happen!". and if you listened to ralph nader's acceptance speech this weekend, you might believe it's already happenning!
--
J Perry Fecteau, 5-time Mr. Internet
Ejercisio Perfecto: from Geek to GOD in WEEKS!
--
And Justice for None
you have dealt with a real monopoly until you've dealt with snet. they charge for anything they can pull out of their ass! one time i relieved myself while i was talking on the phone and next month there was a $7.50 PISSING CHARGE ON THE BILL!!! i shit you not (pardon the pun)!
--
J Perry Fecteau, 5-time Mr. Internet
Ejercisio Perfecto: from Geek to GOD in WEEKS!
--
And Justice for None
With this latest Justice Department move, I'm guessing that we'll soon hear rumors that Sprint is receiving offers to move to British Columbia :-)
And from the perspective of the workers, they're being asked to give their employers 15 hours of work a week for free.
I'm a capitalist. I *HATE* working for free. If WorldCom can't succeed without the employees giving it free gifts it's being mismanaged. REAL businesses don't need handouts.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
IANAL, but AFAIK it depends on the state you live in; I don't recall that it's a federal issue. Many state governments post their laws online, although your best bet is to have a lawyer find out for you.
;)
Sadly, I don't qualify for overtime, but on the bright side, my contract is rapidly coming back up and this company would probably die without me and one or two other guys.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
The MCI part of the name was dropped around the time when WorldCom started the new Generation D campaign.
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
Coming from the other side (I was working at WorldCom before the MCI merger, and after), let me tell the other side of the story.
MCI was bought because it was a good deal -- the company was hemorraging money, as reflected by the dismal stock price, and was absolutely the most corporate of coporations. Especially when compared to the WorldCom culture. When the deal was inked, I believe one of the terms was that the MCI name would be retained, since the company had spent so much money on branding.
Unfortunately, the branding that the company spent money on was one of 9pm calls from pushy salespeople that were more annoying that successful.
One of the first things Bernard Ebbers did once the deal went through was to sell off 5 of the 8 corporate jets that MCI owned. Yes there were fairly significant layoffs, especially around the MCI water coolers. There was a reason for this. The WorldCom departments equivalent to MCI departments tended to be 50-60% of the size. There was a LOT of deadweight. Where my department was handled by 4 people and 1 executive, the MCI department had more than twice those numbers.
Now, I'm no longer with WorldCom, so I'm not "in the know", but I happen to believe that the main purpose of the Sprint deal is for their wireless. Those of you worried about WorldCom becoming a colossus of data lines, remember that UUNET is a part of WorldCom. Most of the Internet traffic goes over the UUNET network. Sorry, but WorldCom would give up the Sprint network in a heartbeat if it meant getting Sprint's wireless network. WorldCom doesn't have a wireless network right now (other than SkyTel).
If you're worried about long-distance competition, don't. You're wasting your time. WorldCom is already moving to "any-distance" phone service, i.e. a voice call is a voice call is a voice call, regardless of where it goes. Whether around the corner or around the world. The overhead of charging per-minute fares is quickly overshadowing the the going per-minute rates (10 cents down to 8 cents, down to 5 cents). Access charges, network overhead, etc have eaten the profit down to 10% of a 5 cent a minute call.
The AC above complaints don't make me cringe. Yes, there would be layoffs in a WorldCom/Sprint merger. There always are! That's one of the advantages of mergers! (Think "synergies", read "layoffs") Only, it would not be like the MCI merger, because, by and large, Sprint employees aren't as woefully inept as MCI employees tended to be. Sprint has remained competitive because of this reason. Now, there is an advantage to Sprint joining with WorldCom, because they can join their most successful functions -- data and wireless -- and make a powerfull post-millenial company, rather than an AT&T knockoff.
I'm not posting anonymously, because I think the WorldCom/Sprint deal would be great. I'm not just an ex-employee, I'm also a stock holder! :) So I'd take my words with however much salt you desire -- but I stand by them.
(No, not from options, from the regular way of getting a broker to buy them)
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
that's great, until Esrey sells off each sprint mbu one by one... how secure does your job feel now? mine doesn't feel so safe.
Anonymous NOC fella.
You're fooling yourself. You'd just get called twice as much by the same people.
/ \
\ / ASCII ribbon campaign for peace
x
/ \
It may be that the law just makes it difficult to start a competitor, not impossible. But I do know that I only have one choice here in Minnesota, so the AT&T breakup didn't give me any choices in local service.
actually, the harm comes only after a company which has acquired a monopoly begins to use its control to stifle competition in its own AND ADJOINING business sectors.
This is what the DoJ says, but I just don't buy it. Having a large market share is certainly an advantage, but it is not an insurmountable advantage, and other firms can position themselves to have equal advantages. Furthermore, the exertion of such influence is not without cost. Microsoft can probably take over any one product if it spends enough money, but there is no guaruntee that they'll make money in the process. And if they don't make money, they are essentially just giving away a product below cost, which is a boon to consumers.
Furthermore, if the start integrating buggy features into their OS, consumers will get pissed eventually and switch to another OS. Yes, it will take a lot of aggravation before most consumers will switch, but that just reflects the enourmous value the market places on standardization.
I think you're right about the changes in the information age, although I think you're overstating the case. High-tech ventures are more susceptible to integration, since most high-tech assets are intangible and easily combined, but there will still be competition in similar markets. In part this is because contrary to antitrust conventions, markets are not atomic and clearly defined. Every company fills a niche in the marketplace, but the niches overlap. If I don't like a product, I can usually get pieces of the functionality I get from that product from a variety of other products. SO while every narrowly-defined business may become a monopoly, each business will still have to fight to retain customers who inhabit overlapping market niches.
Microsoft will probably never drive Apple or Sun out of business entirely, because each has a core constitutency that wants what Apple or Sun offer. But outside of Apple's core constituency are many users who would be happy on either Mac or Windows. It is for those users that Microsoft and Apple compete. But even if Microsoft gets all of them, Apple still has a base of customers that are not likely to ditch Apple for any reason.
The same is true in most markets-- few if any companies provide identical products. Each company specializes in ways that no other company does, and a merger of any two of these firms is likely to serve both niches poorly, and open up those niches to better-tailored competitors.
OK, so you've told me that there were programs in the 80's that you liked better than the programs that Microsoft has now. So what?
No program is "objectively better" than any other. All programs have good and bad features, and it is up to the individual to decide which mix of features, price, performance, convenience, and stability is best for him. You don't feel that Microsoft products meet your needs.
That's all well and good, but it says nothing about the economics of the situation. The fact that you dislike their products doesn't mean that they are "objectively" inferior. You have an opinion that they are inferior. Other people disagree. But whether you like MS products or not has no bearing on whether they are a monopoly.
As for the frivolous lawsuit, I agree that those are bad. But the solution to that is tort reform, not launching an antitrust case against them 10 years later. Certainly suing people for specious reasons is sleazy, but an overly-litigous tort system is not a defining feature of capitalism either. It is therefore not an indictment of the free market (or an argument for antitrust law) that sleazy lawsuits occur.
Perhaps your copy of the Constitution is different than mine, but I don't remember anything in there about "Congress shall have the power to prevent the formation of private monopolies." Which clause exactly requires the Feds to prevent the formation of monopolies?
Secondly, what is a "predatory monopoly?" Since AT&T and numerous smaller firms are still in the market, what harm comes from having these two firms merge? And even if all three of them merged, what is to stop an upstart competitor from entering the market and challenging the established player?
Antitrust regulation is not in the Consitution. It is in legislation passed only since the 1890's. They are bad laws and do little to encourage competition. No government intervention is needed for competition to occur. The government need only keep its hands off and let the firms in the marketplace compete for the business of consumers. Historically, antitrust laws have been used by lesser competitors to stifle their more able competitors. The latest example is the Microsoft case. But there have been dozens of such examples over the last hundred years. There are very few examples where antitrust law has clearly benefitted anyone other than the competitors of the company being prosecuted.
OK, but you are talking about local service, not long distance. Local service is a monopoly by law-- telephone regulations before the breakup of Ma Bell essentially gave them an exclusive monopoly over the local phone market. Today, that big monopoly has simply been broken up into a bunch of little monopolies-- you still only have one choice of local phone service in most parts of the country.
What needs to happen is that the laws giving the Baby Bells advantages over rivals needs to be repealed. This does not require antitrust law, nor does it require lawyers. It merely requires an act of Congress to rewrite the laws that are screwing us over in the first place.
they can't grow to the point where they threaten the public good.
How exactly is the public good threatened by a larger long distance carrier?
I dont think any of us want a return to the 1880's when huge businesses (standard oil anyone?) ran the country, and the government was merely a front for those businesses. Big business is too powerful as it is already.
Could you please present your evidence that in 1880 Standard Oil ran the country?
Standard Oil got the market position it did because it was really really efficient at what it did. Under their leadership, the price of oil dropped dramatically, leading to more oil at better prices for consumers. Its market share peaked in about 1890 at about 85%, and it had dropped to about 65% by the time it was broken up in 1910.
If they were such a big, bad, monopoly, how did they lose such a big chunk of their market share to competitors *before* they were broken up? And if they lost market share before hand, is it not likely that competitors would have continued to gain market share after the ruling?
The story about "robber barons" taught in high school is a myth. Yes, there was some corruption, and yes, some companies had a large market share. But most industries were highly competitive, and there were almost none (including the oil market) where one firm was able to wipe out all competition.
The same is true today. Most antitrust enforcement, including this decision, the Microsoft case, the Staples-Office Depot merger, and others, will help only these companies' competitors, at the expense of the consumer. The history of antitrust is full of examples of governments breaking up successful companies simply because they have driven some competitors out of business by offering a better product at a lower case. That's not how capitalism is supposed to work.
The Patent & Trademark Office could take a few pointers from the DOJ.
They have to, without question, deal with and support unions.
Yeah, it was a real shame when companies had to stop paying the police to beat kill union members and their family members in the middle of the street.
A real blow to the free-market economy. Why can't the government just stay out of it?...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Something that you may not have thought of is this:
Last week when I was talking to a rep from UUnet I was pleased to hear that even if MCI/Sprint do merge, they will only keep the UUnet portion of Internet sales. All of the Sprint ISPs and backbone lines will be sold off to smaller and, possibly, new companies. This isn't making less competition. This is giving more power to the competition and creating new competitors. Why would the US turn this down then?
Here's my thought:
Just like personal income tax, my understanding is that businesses pay a higher percentage if they make more money (Graduated Tax). This means that even if the same revenue is made be 4 smaller companies, the US government will make less money compared to Sprint making that same profit in one company.
This is a disappointment as far as I can see it. With UUnet as the most reliable ISP on the planet and Sprint doing all lf this research in multi-frequency digital optical signals, I would expect progress to come a lot faster with the merger. So once again we see greed standing in the way of progress.
There's my 2 cents.
Dissenter
Dissenter
"There is no knowledge that is not power."
I don't know about by law... I have a choice of two companies for local service.
Hi,
Some git has been impersonating me again. I'm sorry guys.
Please don't moderate me down too much.
sorry.
--
Jon.
http://www.jonmasters.org/
Consumers definition of capitalism is different than corporate's definition. The goal of capitalism in the corporate eyes is to eventually be a monopoly.
The Sprint/Worldcom merger would of been bad. They would of controlled 60%-70%, all the backbone access points to Europe and Africa and a good chuck of the access points to Asia, and on top of that a huge chunk of the wireless market as well. AT&T may be leading in the market, but it doesn't mean that one should automatticly let all the other companies do as they damn well please. It was to stop this merged company from becoming a royal pain in everyone's ass.
this one is easy...
disclamer i work for radio shack..
1) did she buy the phone at radio shack? the answer, doesnt matter.. just go to an radio shack, buy an phone, and have them call sprint, an get sprint to switch her phone# to the new phone. at that time have them, upgrade to monthly billing...
2) the snot-head radio shack sales person didnt what to help did they? well, you when to a mall store didnt you? dont go to a bizy store. the snot-head sales ppl willnt help.. they just want to make quick sale.
if this doesnt work get the sprints regonal sales rep. #, they can fix it..
sprint is just discontuing there prepay. it just wasnt making all that much for them... yes, she will have to buy an new phone.. no i dont know way she just has to... (look im not payed to think, just sale crap)
and if all else fails, do not by any means, tell them i told you to do this! really i dont need the heat..
nmarshall
#include "standard_disclaimer.h"
R.U. SIRIUS: THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESPONSE
nmarshall
The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
--Colonel Burr 1783
This does seem to exclude customer support, hardware maintenace, system administration type
duties (that one might be harder to argue), etc.
It seems to primarily apply to programmers - so
that job I had for $20,000 a year (w/ 3 years
experience) where they apparently expected 60+
hours weeks w/ no overtime is going to be seriously screwed when their employees wise up.
ObTagLine: The more you run over the 'possum, the flatter it gets.
HEy, just as long as they don't stop running those ads of Sela Ward jumping and dancing aronud in a black catsuit.
I wonder which phone company can get me one of those
Any of them, as soon as they are damn good and ready!
"I will gladly pay you today, sir, and eat up
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
Thankfully, i think that is changing. If i remember correctly in NY you can or will be able to pick your local carrier as well. Monopolies suck, just look at the cable industry. I had a 100/month cable bill, and i didn't really have many services. Std cable and a cable modem.
Thats why i think mergers should be outlawed all together. If you can't survive on your own in the market, you don't deserve to.
MCI Worldcom is not one company, it's a collection of seperate companies squashed togather. Maybe someday they will be one company, but not now. How many IP backbones do they have? How many FrameRelay backbones do they have? (7 from what I recall reading somewhere). How many long distance backbones do they have? Sprint, at least, seems to have built most of what they have from the ground up, in a way that seems to be reasonably connected togather.
I, at least, don't want my traffic going over 4 backbones, managed by 4 different groups of people, and be told that I'm dealing with "one" company.
I really shouldn't have used someone else's email address for this account.
We are all lucky, there are still some sanity left in the government. Mega-corps like AOL/TW and Sprint/Mci are not good for the customers, or the general public. I dont think any of us want a return to the 1880's when huge businesses (standard oil anyone?) ran the country, and the government was merely a front for those businesses. Big business is too powerful as it is already.
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
I guess they didn't 'donate' enough money to politicians.
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If you're worried about long-distance competition, don't. You're wasting your time. WorldCom is already moving to "any-distance" phone service, i.e. a voice call is a voice call is a voice call, regardless of where it goes. Whether around the corner or around the world. The overhead of charging per-minute fares is quickly overshadowing the the going per-minute rates (10 cents down to 8 cents, down to 5 cents). Access charges, network overhead, etc have eaten the profit down to 10% of a 5 cent a minute call.
Hey, man, I think I finally am catching on. If companies can charge a premium for wireless communications, then it makes sense that the prices for land-based (long-distance) calling from your wirebound home phone should be all the cheaper. I mean, there's broadband cable access to the internet now, which is faster (well, in theory) than 56k modems over copper lines. If/when wireless broadband is sufficently fast (someone quote me a current baud, please), then kiss the market for 56k's goodbye. Wireless T1's for everybody! How exciting; we certainly do have a new communications era on our hands.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
Thanks, I'll do that if she didn't get it at Radio Shack and can't use the other idea.
Thanks, I'll have her try this immediately, if she can (I don't know where she got her phone).
I wonder if you could help me help one of my poorer, marginalized, non-techie acquaintances? She lives in an SRO (single-room occupancy) hotel in New York with an archaic MANUAL telephone switchboard. After the newest owners took over, and they began to convert "empty" rooms to luxury hotel units (so they could charge $140/night instead of an average $100/week), her incoming telephone service "mysteriously" deteriorated. After a frantic attempt to get her new landlord have staff clean up their act (duh!), she wised up enough to buy herself a cellular phone.
I think she works as some kind of barely-trained night nurse, but she is an independent, so her clients all have to know her phone number. She has been using the same telephone number (with the 917 area code which around here means "beeper" or "cell-phone") for two years, since June '98. Just a few days ago, she got a letter from Sprint PCS, claiming they are about to close their pre-paid phone card service (which she had to use, of course), but offering to let her trade up to an "account limit" service.
The problem is, Sprint PCS is claiming that not only do they have to change her phone number, but that they "don't have the technical capacity" to put a message on her old line, other than that "the number is no longer in service!" She called several times to ask different customer service operators about this, they all say the same thing, and she is in tears over it.
I told her I would try to look into it for her. Is there any possibility Sprint PCS had to give up this service for an upcoming merger, and the line is going to another company? Could this poor woman somehow buy her old number from the other company?
Yesterday I called the FCC, and they said they didn't have jurisdiction, but it sounded like an issue for the NY Public Services Commission. When I called them, their initial routing message claims they no longer have jurisdiction over either cellular or pre-paid phonecard services. We're left with the Better Business Bureau (duh...), or the NYS Attorney General's office (if some crime were committed). Is it really possible that this service, so essential to the livelihood of the few very poor persons in this country who depend on a telephone service and have no other access to it, is really unregulated?
Any information or assistance would be greatly appreciated!
Okay. So, now we have AOL/Time Warner jumping in bed, you can see that ever major provider can see the future. Cisco is going full force telephony with the IP Phones they're going to release in a few months. That means that the battle is on, and everyone is going to want to merger to pool resources in the tought battle ahead.
- enter the DOJ
Hey, we want to become all powerful, err... keep people from getting screwed.
kick some CAD
Nonsense. Law, Medicine, Catering, Farming.
--
I saw that
Oh phuleeeze - not another "bad government for enforcing the laws" rant.
Establishing a monopoly through merger != Corporate Progress
I don't think this can be regulated with any kind of world body - you'd just end up with the UN of commerce, which would more than likely end up as completely ineffectual.
There are no ready solutions to this problem. This is why I said:
This scares me.
It still does.
tsf.
I'm not sure if I'm the one kidding myself - big business will always have money, and there's nothing politicians like more than money - it's their livelyhood. They won't get re-elected without a large campaign fund, and no matter what anyone says, the easiest way to get lots of money is to make a few 'concessions' to business - they'll make it worth the governments' while.
My point is that the government is not always the people anymore - look at the DMCA for example. This was a law put in place by corporations for corporations, and look at the consequences now. Perhaps you should look a little past the rosy democratic society you think you live in, and check out the real world.
tsf.
At least here in the States...
This is a major part of the problem. The US is just one country - and while the laws may be fairly strict there, there's always going to be somewhere else a company can set up shop without having to worry about this.
There's only so much one government can do.
tsf.
Some time ago the brazilian government sold their telecommunications company (was a monopoly) to several private companies, and also permitted that new companies were formed to compete.
MCI bought the majority of the state company (Embratel) and Sprint owned shares of their (only as of now) competitor. When the merger was announced, there were many discussions about legality of this situation and if, being Sprint not the owner but just a (not major) shareholder, competition would be compromised.
The final decision was to force Sprint to sell their shares, as I believe has alreaqdy been done... but I am not quite sure of that.
--
Marcelo Vanzin
Marcelo Vanzin
It sure is US West. But you bring grim news... I think Charter Communications recently promised to bring DSL there (are they the ones that are affiliated with wyoming.com?) I guess I'd better wait before rejoicing.
As an employee of MCIWorldcom, I have to say that I'm rather pleased that this latest attempt by Bernie Ebbers to maintain his little Ponzi Scheem has failed. Worldcom has created an atmosphere of Fear Uncertainty and Doubt amongst its employees that is reaching absurd levels.
I've been with MCI for a bit over a decade, and I can tell you that it was a completely different place before Worldcom came to pillage the company. Right now, I'm looking for the right opportunity to exit, like many other people. There are groups I know of with 30%+ turnover if you take it at an annual rate.
Screw Bernie. He thinks because people are stupid enough to believe that by printing stock certificates, he is creating something of value. Can any of you think of a single product or service that has come from this Borg-like entity called Worldcom?
I thought not.
Z
This is an ex-parrot!
Because Deutche Telekom is going to buy it. Then we'll get to hear the government whine about that.
There are no Grape-Nuts factories in Ethiopia either. Maybe that's why Ethiopians are starving and we are all driving solid gold Cadillacs.
Mmmmm, grape nuts.
My mom is not a Karma whore!
I myself got a degree in a "lowly" major (i.e.: neither of my majors was engineering-related), and I will be making in excess of $40,000/year for a tech company where I plan not to work more than 45 hours per week, as a general rule.
My engineering friends received offers ranging from $45,000/year to $70,000/year at jobs that will not require them to sell their souls. Those willing to give up their first born took jobs paying up to $100,000 per year. And yes, these are 21-and-22-year-olds.
Engineering students with degrees from good four-year universities and decent grades (say 3.0 GPA or higher) don't really have to settle for anything less nowadays.
Just my two cents...
heidi
It's good to hear that government agencies are against this merger. The idea of a decent company like Sprint merging with a really really bad company like MCI Worldcom (of course, this is personal opinion). That and this sort of merger would create a company almost similar to that of AT&T back in the early 80s. Then we'd be hearing about two major companies with all sorts of anti-competitive practices =).
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
DT has its eyes on the US market, and Sprint is going to be their way in if MCI is blocked.
Most college grads hired into IT are now clearing $60k on their first job, with Silicon Valley companies pushing large cash bonuses to the best, which can easily push their first year compensation near $100k.
To be blunt, you seem to be severely out of touch with regards to coder salaries. If you are working in Boston as a coder for $55k then you are getting chumped.
Within these three providers there was an oligopoly. They competed with each other - and when combined they competed with the rest of the ISP industry.
C&W doesn't have much marekting muscle to attact new providers. Their subscriber base probably isn't inscreasing as fast as it would have if it were MCI.
The same probably would have happened to SprintLink - having a good initial customer base, but not much left for marketing.
I have no idea what goes on behind the scenes at WorldCom these days (not employed by WCOM, but it's not like employees know anything either), but I suspect the withdrawal from EU consideration is either a tactical move (using the DoJ as an excuse to keep the EU from forcing an unfavorable vote) or a setback (maybe the DoJ was acting independently). Don't be surprised if something else surfaces. Execs at WCOM and FON were both committed to this deal at some point and so were the stockholders.
For wireless - I was a big fan of the Nextel merger. It fit well and made alot of sense. WCOM claims it was a difference over cash that made negotiations fall apart. I personally think it was ego. Now Nextel is way too expensive (more than double the value). Unfortunately, so is everything else. What's left? "Verizon"? :^( They'd be better off doing it themselves under the Skytel name.
--
Eric Ziegast
Disclaimer: I own some WCOM stock.
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
I'm still waiting on something to be done about AOL/Time-Warner though...
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
You must lead a very sad life. I have turned jobs down, that paid 2-3X what Imake presently, because my time is invaluable & my life can not be bought.
The idiot before me worked 60 hr weeks. Guess what. I work a strict 35 hr week. I sell 2x what he did.
I do not exist for my boss to "spurt jizz" Sad that you do.
Tom
Reality does not happen until you analyze the dots. -Don DeLillo (Underworld)
For a short time a few years ago when everyone was running around putting blue ribbons on their websites, WorldCom purchased and held 60% of the Internet transit traffic in their little hands.
(MCI, UUNet, ANS, someone else I am sure).
Fortunately, InternetMCI was sold off to C&W - that of course is subject to your experiences as a customer of C&W.
If this deal included WCom hanging onto Sprint Link and other Internet holdings, I would oppose it simply because of the "pay for transit" deal UUNet did after it was purchased by WCom. Sure, from a routing standpoint it made sense, but you don't break deals, Mr. Sidgemore. [Jonathan Sidgemore - now there's a piece of work. Do a little look up on him sometime. Scary]
Since it is only wireless WCom wants, which it does not have, let 'em have it. I think the Justice Dept. is feeling a little cocky after their successes with MS and Elian.
Yes and no.
At least here in the States, large companies actually deal with more annoyances than the individual or even the small business has to deal with.
For instance, they often times have to hire, promote and train often times based upon color or sex rather than skills.
They have to pay the lionshare of taxes in the US - [which they pass on to us no doubt]
They have to comply with often time, arcane rules for ergonomics and safety set for them by a department with nothing better to do. [Nothing funnier than seeing the local Bell rep in a hard hat in our equipment room. Look out for those falling bits!]
They have to, without question, deal with and support unions.
It takes an act of Congress, literally, for them to do business outside of our borders.
Apply all of these restrictions in some form to your life and you can understand why some companies are so.. difficult.
So what do you suggest? A world body which sets rules for conduct and behavior for all companies worldwide?
Embellish.
And you know what's even funnier? These big companies that come waltzing in with "I am from Andercooper Consulting. We will pay you the grand sum of 45,000.00 per year. No stock, no options, no matching 401k plan, but hey, you get to be on the company softball team, get to participate in team building exercises every morning and we only charge .25 for coffee from the machine."
.rtf file sent to us by a client or vendor none of us can read.
Companies like this rarely get IT/CSE grads. They get Troy and Chad who were business majors and then send them to some internal MCSE classes and then send them out to the field to make statements about 'synergy' and 'ERP dynamics'.
Meanwhile, you stand in the hallway and watch a couple of guys with last names for first names wearing the prerequisite dark suit with banded collar shirt marching about the office yakking about the how well the stock did and how they are both partners and are planning to take their girlfriends (not their wives!) to St, Maarten next week and the most they know how to do is click on MS Exploder and spread viruses with Outlook.
Yeah buddy, that's not for me. Give me a startup with 50 or fewer employees, stock options, a good business plan and a preference for Unix, Linux and Macs and one NT machine we all use to read that bizarre
US West perhaps? Sounds like the same story here, DSL STILL IS NOT AVAILABLE.... and in the 1 or 2 places it is, the prices are outrageous. On top of that, Charter Communications says it will wire this city for cable, and it still hasn't... they keep lying to us.
By the way my ISP was MCI before they sold to C&W and now I am a Prodigy customer because C&W sold it's ISP services to Prodigy.
This was the best news that I and my fellow Sprint employees could have received. By now we have accepted the fact that our company will most likely merge with someone just to keep up with the BOCs and the ATT / cable behemoth, but I would rather it be anyone than Worldcom. Read the comments from former MCIers at www.vault.com to get the picture of what happened to them. Give me Bell South or Deutsche Telekom anyday rather than Bernie Ebbers and his gang of short sided stock price watchers.
It seems to me that since 1999 there has been a veritable rash of mergers. My own company is involved in one (the Bell Atlantic / GTE merger). It is good to see that the government is finally taking notice, and I hope it's not too late. I can find many reasons why huge conglomerates are not a good thing.
We as a consumer have to deal with poor customer service, and inferior quality. Have you ever tried to reach a customer service rep for any of the major telecommunications companies? You wander through a "phone maze" for 15 minutes before you might have a chance to talk with a real person. Usually, it is an automated system that gives you some basic information and hangs up. If you do happen to get a real person, they don't know how to help you. You will be given a new number to call and can start the process all over again. As far as a poor product goes, we all know about Microsoft and their buggy software.
Internally, it is hard for a very large company to even function. It can take years to bring a new and unique product to market. There are too many people that have to get their fingers in the pie, and no one can agree on how to proceed. A co-worker of mine once said to me "I worked here for 18 years, and never saw a project come to fruition". Their only option is to buy a smaller company and innovate that way. (Sound familiar?)
As more corporations merge, the worse the job market becomes. GTE lost a good percentage of headcount the last two years...over 15 percent to prepare for this merger. More staff reductions loom in the next few months.
Last, having a few large companies tends to approach a "single point of failure" in the economy. If--for some reason--one of these large companies fails, it can have a large impact on the economy. This would put more people out of work and continue in a vicious circle, because jobless people are not going to buy product.
I'm not one for the government to interfere with things. But, in this case, I think a little regulation is required.
Considering the way we're headed with integrating data, voice and video, i don't think a merger would mean much towards creating any type of monopoly or oligopoly. Don't believe me? There are several points to consider: 1) The telecommunications act of 1996 encourages competition in both long and local telephone services. There are litteraly thousands of long distance carriers in the united states. If AT&T and Sprint/MCI started charging insane rates, i'll just one of the joe schmoe carriers for service. 2) It is CHEAPER to carry voice over a packet switched network than it is to carry it on our current circuit switched network. Why is this significant? The current packet switched network is decentralized. Almost ANYONE could offer voice services if this becomes a reality. With our current infrastructure, most phone companies can charge 10 cents a minute and make a profit. However, if we integrate our voice networks in a packet switched network (i.e. the Internet), long distance carriers and every ISP out there could charge 1 cent per minute and STILL make a profit. Granted voice conversations are not quite practical in packet networks JUST YET (as packets aren't exactly the ideal way to handle voice given latency/packet loss), voice over ip is developing real fast to handle these issues. And of course the big backbone corporations are constantly upgrading our network infrastructure (OC-768 anyone?).
well, why did AT&T and mediaone go through? The MediaOne/AT&T merger affects me because I am a MediaOne Customer. I don't like the merger. We are being forced to drop the Road Runner Service and go with an internet service from AT&T What a joke.
Success!
You must be so proud.
[ insert meme here ]
People today are not wearing enough pants.
onk think that your mom is not wearing enough pants.
onk has one mhz commodore 64! brother oog has fast commodore 128. combined we have 64 + 128...ah forget it, we have lot of memory. our computers very good. very very fast too.
The government is perfectly fine with AT&T's 44% share of the market, but does not want another company to hold 30% of the market? What's the point? In most areas - even in decently large metropolitan cities, you don't really have much of a choice when it comes to reliable, high-speed connectivity or web hosting. You can either buy your stuff from #1, or the 'other companies with limited access/bandwidth'. Not like a truly fair market exists.. (and it shouldn't, really)
For the record, I am the same AC who posted before.
I have no objections to working long hours. I have objections to those long hours being mandated. In my previous job at an Internet start-up, I was routinely putting in 60- and 70-hour weeks--management at one point had to order me to stop coming into the office for a couple of days.
What I object strongly to is corporate management demanding a 55-hour workweek because they'd laid off a third of the critical staff. That's not "trimming the fat". That's called mismanagement. Management has a responsibility to accurately assess the work required for a task to be completed, and to either (a) bring on the staff required to do the job or (b) refuse to accept the job, on the basis that it cannot be done with the available manpower.
What WorldCom did is it took an organization which was running very efficiently, and chopped a third of the people from that group--and then complained because the remaining two-thirds couldn't do the same amount of work as the original body.
I have no objection to working my hands to the bone. But if I'm going to do it, it had damn well better not be because corporate management decided to play Is There A God? with headcount and wound up screwing themselves over by firing the people who were most essential to making delivery dates.
I'm tired of dealing with phone companies. They're one of the few commercial (non government) entities who really could care less about their customers
... Which would mean that the companies do care about their customers.
Get it right people! It's "couldn't care less", otherwise there is the implication that they do care...
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
The NYTimes is reporting that the two companies have withdrawn the merger papers. They say they might refile at some point but the conditions imposed by the European Union and this intent to block by the DoJ didn't make it worthwhile.
There was a good story in the NYTimes earlier this week about the conditions and possible sell-offs that would have had to result had this gone through, the slicing and dicing of the combined company would have been pretty brutal.
Try contacting your congressman, they or someone on their staff may be interested enough in getting your vote to drop a letter to the telco. It might work even better if you mention the poor lady's story is being followed on a "popular internet news site" and maybe set up a quickie little page on Geocities. I don't live in NY, but if a couple NY Slashdot readers were to also write letters of support I think it would get your representative's attention pretty quick. They love doing things for voters when it doesn't cost them anything.
That's Bell Atlantic Mobile & PrimeCo, not MCI/Sprint.
http://www.verizonwireless.com/
> In no other industry is a 55 hour week considered normal by anyone, much less mandatory.
There are studies around relating productivity to hours worked, and they do not in general favor "overtime" as a way for businesses/departments to get ahead.
In an unrelated field where I previously worked, I think the stats said that you got the most done if you worked 50 hours, but it was only a bit more than what you got done if you only worked 40 (i.e., it gave the peak output, but was already below the peak efficiency). If you worked 60 hrs/wk, you actually got less done than if you only worked 40 (and of course, much less in average output/hr).
Does anyone know of a study of this type that is specific to the IT field?
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Thanks for the nice quotes.
> who regularly exercise discretion and judgment;
Ah-ha! Who's ever had a job where your boss didn't try to tell you how to do your work?
> work which is intellectual and varied in character, the accomplishment of which cannot be standardized as to time;
A good one to cast back into your PHB's teeth whenever s/he says you're taking too long. We seem to have it on Legislative Authority that it is not possible to predict how long an IT project will take.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Link to KC Star article: http://www.kcsta r.com/item/pages/home.pat,local/37749141.627,.html
License: By reading this you are agreeing that you agree with me.
Actually.. they only have that 'right' because governments (in other words, the poeple) allow it.
Don't kid yourself.
If they'll spin off the disputed wireless assets instead.
This would have an interesting effect of renewing competition in the wireless arena, at the expense of a landline consolidation.
would it be better? I don't know, but it would sure be interesting.
--
The real Webmaven is user ID 27463. I don't rate an imposter, because my ID is such a lame-ass high number.
The government blocks many different things. That's the whole point of a government. When we live as citizens within the control of that government, we agree that they are allowed to block certain activities. These are generally known as laws.
In the case of this merger, the government has a pretty large law to follow: the Constitution. Only Congress can grant monopoly power, and the government is charged with the job of making sure monopolies are kept in check.
Now, this role has changed over the past 200 years. At one point, nobody took this Constitutional clause very seriously. Later on, it was taken very seriously. Today, it primarily focuses on predatory monopolies.
What's the point of this? It's the government's job (at least within the United States). They will always check corporate progress and encourage competition (at least they should).
To give you an idea of what REALLY blocking corporate progress would mean, consider this example. The government creates its own telecommunications backbone, undercharges ISPs (by using tax dollars) and runs the competitors out of business. Then, it allows this company to take on the bloat of most of the other government institutions. That's blocking corporate progress.
55 hours a week? Is that considered hard time in Kansas City? I live in Boston and that is what everyone around here does, for about the same money, in a city that is much more expensive.
11 hour days are too much, just simply too much.
Assuming a rather (I think anyways) average 7 hour sleep cycle, that leaves 17 hours a day, 11 hours of that spent at work translates into 6 hours for living, wow, with a workweek like that you really are becomming your job.
And before you start saying I'm lazy, I've put in 96 hours a week for a month or so in my last job. I think work weeks are too long, life is meant for living, not simply working.
-- iCEBaLM
I *DO* work for a certain nameless long distance provider... and the employees are most certainly celebrating. =-)
Well cracking the whip and reducing headcount may be a great way to crank out some short term numbers that will get the investors rocks off. However it is hell on the employees, ever work in an understaffed IT dept? For a while after cuts picking up the slack and prodcutivity goes up but it doesn't take to long before moral really goes down, quality of work decreases and employees generally stop trusting and even begin resenting management.
In no other industry is a 55 hour week considered normal by anyone, much less mandatory. If your motivated and want to work 50, 60, 70 hours a week fine do that, but chastise those people with a LIFE outside of work who only put in 40 hours a week as not pulling their weight, that's bullshit and you know it. Remember you are NOT your job.
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
Oh yea it kicks ass, if you really love your work. Alot of us here are "lifestyle geeks" we do this for fun as much as we do it for money. I'm sure I'm not the only one here who unwinds afterwork by reading through his home server log files or recompiling his kernel, or setting up a DHCP server just for fun in an apartment with only one workstation.
The point is though managers shouldn't require it. Like I said earlier if you want to work from home or put 80 hrs in the office great go for it and fuck the unions, but that kind of overtime is only productive and efficient if people do it cuz they want to and they find their work rewarding.
"Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
Man....blocking a merger like this...next thing you know, they'll be trying to split up Microsoft.
Wait a minute...
--------
Oscarfish.com: tropical fish with attitude. Way t
55 hours a week? Is that considered hard time in Kansas City? I live in Boston and that is what everyone around here does, for about the same money, in a city that is much more expensive.
I don't always love my job either, but long workweeks aren't going to get any sympathy from me. Sounds like good ol' Worldcom just trimmed a little fat.
-cwk.
If there are only two or three giants, how does that impact the n companies left below them? When will they be forced to consolidate to stay in business, or simply crumble and sell out?
Will what has happened to radio, print and tv happen to the Internet? Will 1/3 of the ISPs one day merely be subsidiaries of AOL? Will network providers secretly answer to Sprint?
These are just wonderings I am having this evening.....
sig not found
Why is the DOJ so quick on its feet against the telcos, but such a dawdle-dodo when it comes to Microsoft?
We only have one major carrier here, and trust me you don't want that to happen to you. They have very much a 'rape and run' attitude, where they charge out the ass for internet services that are cheap other places (normal ISDN is around 300 a month, IIRC) and don't even work properly because they haven't contributed anything to the backbone. We just recently got DSL in the state(not where I am, though), and that's only because the state governor has been bitching to them for ages. Everyone hates them.
Of course, we WERE going to get cable modems, but the AT&T bastards bought TCI and scratched that plan. I think the DOJ should sentance all their executives to using 56k modems for the rest of their lives. Serve them right.
The relevant law is the Fair Labor Standards Act. Unfortunately, it appears that they included a big fat exception specifically for computer workers. Otherwise, you might find this document interesting. It mentions four classes of exempt employees: Executive, Administrative, Professional, and Outside Sales. For most of the people on Slashdot, the following definition about which professionals qualify for exemption is the most interesting:
The salary mentioned above means that:
The part about being paid in full for any week in which you work, regardless of the number of hours actually worked, is probably the most important thing here. IOW, if your employer can dock your pay for working part days (or apparently even part weeks!) you are not an exempt employee, unless you're an outside salesperson, doctor, lawyer, or teacher or a computer specialist paid hourly and earning at least $27.63 per hour.
The big thing is that if you really want to know your rights as an employee, you should really take a careful look at the Department of Labor web site.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
P.S. I shouldn't complain. I get free long distance. Check it out over at http://www.broadpoint.com/
/. is a commercial entity. goto slashdot.com
I'm glad this is happening. I reckon that the DOJ and the MMC in the UK should allow a minimum number of major players in any particular market. Say 3 or 4. Stop mergers and acquisitions which would cause this number to be reduced but otherwise keep out of it.
It would keep em at each others throats, keep the prices down and encourage open standards.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Aside from all the regulatory reasons, I;m just glad Wolrdcom lost.
Wasn't it Craig McCaw from MCI that instigated the antitrust suit against AT&T back in the day, so that MCI could enter the long distance market?
Go figure.....
These large companies will in the very near future be as powerful, if not eventually totally replacing, individual governments, because they have one ability governments don't have: the legal right (ie. no war necessary) to expand worldwide.
This scares me.
tsf.
I was kind of hoping this merger would go through -- it would have decreased the number of annoying telemarketing calls to my phone by *at least* 50%. This is clearly an instance where the anti-monopoly law fail to serve the public interest. Heh.
Corporate progress should not be at the expense of ordinary citizens and/or small business. That's why the government steps in when "shady" stuff starts to happen.
I don't mind if it's an expensive legal battle, as long as a message is sent to these huge corporations: That they can't grow to the point where they threaten the public good.
According to the local media here in Kansas City, the world HQ for Sprint, the merger is off.
The Kansas City Star is saying that while the executives are all really glum, the employees have been celebrating.
I don't work for Sprint, but I am glad this is off as well. Even though all through this the executives were saying "We are not moving if we merge," everyone knows otherwise. It happened to Marion Labs, it would have happened to Sprint as well. That would have been a huge hit on the local economy beings that Sprint has 24,000+ employees in this town alone.
In 1998, being a hacker fresh out of college with sheepskin in hand, I received a job at MCI. My background was information security; MCI was interested in me for that, but the unofficial corporate policy was that everyone in the UNIX development team (which InfoSec was part of, don't ask me why) had to spend six months in an unrelated IT field.
It was a reasonably sensible requirement; it ensured that everyone in their InfoSec department had experience with the company's IT infrastructure and it would give the InfoSec group a large skill pool to draw upon. So I took the first job I could get in their IT department, intending on getting a transfer in six months. I wound up as (gasp, horrors) a mainframe QA engineer.
MCI was finishing up the MCI-WorldCom "merger". Don't let it fool you--it wasn't a merger at all. MCI was bought, lock stock and barrel. Bernie Ebbers (the chief of WorldCom) took control and the bloodletting began. In the space of one afternoon, my department lost about a quarter of its headcount. The guy in the cube next to me received his termination notice via email--at ten o'clock in the morning he was fired, and by one o'clock that afternoon he was gone.
We survivors were told that there would be no more layoffs for (I forget--several months). Not too much later, a few weeks, I noticed that a lot of our workforce was all leaving the building at the same time, carrying boxes of stuff. Bernie Ebbers kept his promise--there weren't any layoffs that day. It was just that a few dozen contractors were informed that their contracts would not be renewed, even though they were desperately needed for the success of the projects they were working on.
The corporate culture changed dramatically. The work week was 36 hours when I arrived there; MCI corporate management felt it was important to keep its engineers happy, so they gave us Friday afternoons off. After the WorldCom merger it shot up to 40, then 44 hours; at one point (in mid-1999), my manager told me that the company was expecting 55-hour weeks from me for the next six weeks. Y2K work and all.
Between the constant threat of layoffs, the punishing working conditions, the lack of respect from management, the uncertainty surrounding WorldCom's intentions for MCI and everything else, I decided to get the hell out of Dodge.
It just wasn't worth it for $38,760 a year.
Lesson here: WorldCom is not a friendly business. If this buyout of Sprint is anything like the MCI buyout, Sprint will be decimated in order to make sure it gets in line with WorldCom. This will hurt consumers; it homogenizes the market and stifles the competitive spirit that makes the marketplace go 'round.
While I was at MCI, we were strongly motivated to get the cool stuff done before Sprint could beat us to the punch. It was one part profit motive (stock options) and two parts ego (we wanted bragging rights). It was an effective way of getting us to work hard, and in the end, the consumer benefited.
If the DOJ hadn't stepped in, MCI would have become Sprint, and a lot of that fierce competitiveness would have gone away.
WorldCom is growing far too large, far too quickly. Sometime look at just how many telecommunications companies they've bought out in the last ten years.
-- I'm posting anonymously not because I'm an AC, but because I don't want to get sued by WorldCom. I don't know if they'd sue or not, but considering how draconian their nondisclosure policy was right after the MCI buyout, I'd rather play it safe rather than sorry.
You keep hacking at it; splicing it; chopping it up; melting it; freezing it; splitting it up. Nothing works. At best, you manage to break it into dozens of small chunks, but before you know it, they've instinctively re-assimilated into the original unstoppable body of the T-1000.
I'm tired of dealing with phone companies. They're one of the few commercial (non government) entities who really could care less about their customers. They don't even attempt to convey the appearence that they care about you. Just give them your money, shut the fuck up, and they'll get around to establishing your phone service when they are good and ready.
---
seumas.com