[10670] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
"Fed **deal** may speed MCI's ATM rollout" (fwd)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Doug Humphrey)
Fri Mar 4 22:41:16 1994
Date: Fri, 4 Mar 1994 13:19:49 -0500 (EST)
From: Doug Humphrey <digex@ss1.digex.net>
Reply-To: Doug Humphrey <digex@ss1.digex.net>
To: com-priv@psi.com
>Fed **DEAL** may speed MCI ATM rollout ....... indeed.
>
>I wonder what the legal departments at Sprint and AT&T are up to?
It is *possible* that their legal departments are not doing anything
on this, and indeed *possible* that they knew all along that it was
going to run this way, and *possible* that they have no trouble with
that. Sprint and AT&T both have incredible arrangements with the
federal government, things that make 50 million over 5 years look
a cheap joke. Chump change. This contract is small potatoes in the
government communications contracting industry. Ignore the black
budgets, you still see huge communications contracts. Agriculture,
Commerce, the mundane branches of the gov burn more than this. 50
million over 5 years might buy a small extension to NASCOM and
associated networks that NASA runs. FEMA has a huge comm budget
(that is an AT&T deal). It goes on and on.
I am sure that all of these are perfectly run, support no vendor
agendas, and that all of the major comm vendors compete every one
of them full speed ahead, and that there is never any wheeling and
dealing between vendors as to who gets what.
Yeah, and monkeys will fly out of the capitol dome...
Gordon, I have to say that for myself, I am happy to see you doing
the digging, and working to keep these folks honest. It is refreshing
even if it DOES gets to be a bit too tightly focused at times. However,
you make assumptions that are based on your own view of how things should
be, and they are NOT that way. You assume that AT&T and others will be
outraged at this award. Maybe, but maybe not. AT&T and company may
not feel that they are getting shafted here, might even have known long
ago that this was one earmarked for MCI, and that they might as well
just stay out, and go work the ones that are earmarked for THEM.
In short, the only people that you can be SURE are going to get
shafted are the taxpayers. That is a pretty good assumption to
make. Except for those of us who pay the bills, EVERYBODY may
be in bed together.
Go get an explaination from AT&T; I'll bet you get nothing but
a brick wall, politely. This one (50 mil over 5 years) is not
worth fighting about for them. They might not have wanted it at all.
Doug
