Worldcom has local service in nearly 100 of the biggest cities in America after the Brooks deal closes. These local networks are state of the art and are used to connect directly to business buildings with high volume. If ATT could put all of its business long distance in those areas unto Wcom local loops it would dramatically reduce their interconnect charges to baby bells, and then ATT could sell local service on its own networks to its business long distance customers.
Wcom's local loops are very concentrated to businesses in large and second tier cities, where the biggest bills are at highest margins, with lowest churn.
I don't know where GTE's local loops are but I understand (correct me if I'm wrong) that they're heavily concentrated in a few markets (like California), but not in every major metro market like NY Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Cleveland, Miami, Boston, etc... like Worldcom.
Also, ATT wants internet and international, and there both GTE and ATT have a going business and strategy, but their international strategies are much different.
It's untrue that Wcom is just long distance. After Brooks closing, Wcom will be the largest local operator behind GTE (of the non-baby bells), but like I said GTE and Wcom's local operations are different from what I understand.
If you want a focus on local with business customers, that's what Wcom's focus has been with MFS and now the Brooks acquisition. |
