Network World, 01/04/99

BERNARD EBBERS CEO, MCI WORLDCOM

Bernie Ebbers has gone from a virtual nobody a few years back to being in a better position than virtually any other carrier exec, with the arguable exception of AT&T's Armstrong.

Let us muse on his wondrous assets.

His MCI deal finally closed in September and, with the regulatory approvals, Ebbers cleared a major hurdle in his effort to make WorldCom a one-stop shop for local, long-distance and Internet services.

In addition to MCI, WorldCom owns UUNET, the world's largest Internet backbone provider, as well as MFS and Brooks Fiber. Together, the companies can provide local service in more than 100 markets, within reach of 40 million consumers and 70% of business customers.

Quite a formidable lineup, indeed. Now Ebbers is ready to sink more than $5 billion into MCI WorldCom 's fiber-optic network to ruggedize it for the integrated voice, data and video applications that IP convergence will spawn.

Does Ebbers have the telecom world by the tail? Hardly. The incumbent local exchange carriers are making it hard for other service providers, MCI WorldCom among them, to access their networks. That makes it hard for the MCI WorldComs of the world to provide the seamless local services that customers demand.

There's also the issue of sewing up all that MCI WorldCom now owns into a complete, wrinkle-free package. Ebbers never completely integrated MFS, Brooks and UUNET before swallowing MCI.

EBBERS' CHALLENGE: Ebbers must show that MCI WorldCom is really more than the sum of all its parts. If it remains just a collection of disparate units, and customers can't order end-to-end packet- and circuit-switched services without major hassles, Ebbers will have missed a great opportunity to make good on a huge promise.

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