VIENNA, VA. - Cable & Wireless USA is trying to become a serious contender in the fight for IP and data service dollars.
And Dennis Matteucci, who just completed his third month as CEO of Cable & Wireless USA, has some thoughts on how to get the company ready for battle. Besides beefing up the company's emphasis on data services and boosting its ISP status, Cable & Wireless plans to expand its own network resources and reduce its dependency on other carriers.
These may not be the easiest goals for any service provider, especially one that has little U.S. data service market share and has been having trouble integrating its MCI Internet acquisition (NW, Jan. 11, page 1).
Matteucci recognizes the company's troubles but says Cable & Wireless is on the road to recovery and is in the process of reinventing itself.
"It was obvious to me when I came on board that the organization was dysfunctional," Matteucci says. "My first or second day here I was getting unsolicited recommendations on organizational changes from my direct reports, which was the first indication that something could be done better."
Many of Cable & Wireless' problems stemmed from the fact that the company's Internet business wasn't well integrated with the carrier's existing organization, especially in the sales department. Previously, Cable & Wireless' salespeople each sold specific services, such as voice, data, messaging or IP. Now sales representatives sell all services. It didn't make sense for one customer to be contacted by three salespeople, Matteucci says.
Cable & Wireless is still training and hiring new sales staff to handle the huge customer load it acquired from MCI. Cable & Wireless took on over 3,300 dedicated Internet users, 66,000 dial-up business users, 250,000 dial-up consumers and 1,300 ISPs when it bought internetMCI.
And if buying internetMCI, the second largest ISP in the country, isn't enough to disrupt your business, then basing the future of your company on voice services alone just might be. "Voice has been the core business for Cable & Wireless. But voice is a commodity and will be given away in the future. And I don't mean in the too-distant future either," Matteucci says. "For some reason this company de-emphasized data about 18 months ago, and I can't explain to you why. I don't know why. But it will not be the case going forward, I can tell you that much."
Cable & Wireless was one of the first providers to offer frame relay services, but today it has less than 1% of the market, according to Vertical Systems Group, a consulting firm in Dedham, Mass.
In addition to growing its data business, Cable & Wireless is growing its physical network. Today only 20% to 25% of Cable & Wireless' network infrastructure is owned by the service provider: Matteucci wants to change that. "We have the funding in place to build our own facilities or to partner with other facilities-based providers," he says.
Cable & Wireless: (800) 486-8686
RELATED LINKS
Ex-MCI customers hit by Cable&Wireless blues
Network World, 1/11/99.
Matteucci bio
From C&W.
