[79977] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Qwest protests SBC-AT&T merger as harmful to competition
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Justin M. Streiner)
Tue Apr 19 15:09:18 2005
Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2005 15:08:51 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Justin M. Streiner" <streiner@cluebyfour.org>
To: nanog@merit.edu
In-Reply-To: <Pine.WNT.4.62.0504191402330.1204@vanadium.hq.nac.net>
Errors-To: owner-nanog@merit.edu
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
