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Technology Stocks : Global Crossing - GX (formerly GBLX) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: CF Rebel who wrote (2142)	9/27/1999 7:56:00 PM
From: Teddy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15615

CF, thank you for posting that interview with Bob Annunziata. teledotcom.com Hopefully after the Frontier merger closes (in less than 3 days???????) Global Crossing will be willing and able to provide more information. The whole article is good. Here's a few snips that i found interesting: When Global Crossing's founders hired Annunziata, they had already sketched out a network designed to span five continents and two oceans, delivering ultra-high capacity to nearly 160 cities worldwide by the end of next year. A few of the facilities were already in operation, others under construction. The business plan that Annunziata inherited broke with accepted practice in the international services industry. Global Crossing had begun establishing international cable systems running not just from shore to shore but all the way inland from city to city. ...... But if shore-to-shore wasn't good enough for Global Crossing, neither was city-to-city. Annunziata now says he'll extend connections from building to building. End-to-end. The approach has its admirers: "If I'm crossing four service provider boundaries, I'm relegated to old technology," says Joe Savage, vice president of research for Ryan Hankin Kent Inc. (South San Francisco, Calif.), an analyst firm. "If the network belongs to me end to end, I can be years ahead of the competition." ....... We will have a global network that no one else is even thinking about planning," ... Our message is pretty clear: Global Crossing will be able to link carriers and multinational businesses and small businesses anywhere in the world. Since we will have the most countries that will be linked on our facilities, we will be able to do it faster and we will be able to do it less expensively because we own the facilities. .... Well, since I started the local marketplace, we know the formula, right? So we look at the two to three top local serving offices of the PTT or a Bell operating company so we can just resell the last mile. And then we look at the high-volume customers so we know where to build our fibers. In fact, we just acquired 100 miles of fiber-96 fibers in the New York City marketplace-from Telergy to give me my first step back into building into the buildings in the New York area. .... since I started the local marketplace, we know the formula, right? So we look at the two to three top local serving offices of the PTT or a Bell operating company so we can just resell the last mile. And then we look at the high-volume customers so we know where to build our fibers. In fact, we just acquired 100 miles of fiber-96 fibers in the New York City marketplace-from Telergy to give me my first step back into building into the buildings in the New York area. ..... We will be putting their Web hosting facilities around the world. With our Internet backbone, we can offer Web hosting plus telecommunications facilities and services out of those centers. Who do you view as your primary competitor? What people fail to realize is that this is a trillion-dollar business by 2005 in local, national, international, worldwide. There is plenty of opportunity here for everybody. I believe that our company will continue to grow at aggressive rates. Other companies will grow as well. So it's not a winner-take-all strategy, nor will one technology do it all. But you still have this emphasis on speed to market? Speed to market helps you grow faster. Do you think something like the acquisition of Frontier will slow you down at all? That was one of the criticisms of the acquisition of US West by Qwest. No, I think absolutely not. The criticism was that US West would slow us down, not Frontier. Frontier is a perfect fit. While Global Crossing had sub-sea systems and terrestrial systems in all parts of the world, we did not have a network here in the United States, nor did we have the capabilities of building and testing that we needed. This helps us accelerate, not slow down. But Frontier is about 100 years old. Why is its image so much different from US West's? Well, I think it's twofold. My experience in dealing with the public service commissions is that Frontier has a good reputation. It has good service in the New York state area now. It had some difficulties, but it has improved them. So it's done its job, providing high-quality service to its local residences. And it was forward-thinking to go out and buy this long-haul fiber optic network off of Qwest. Global Crossing has raised some issues at the FCC about the cable consortia on a particular route. Is that going to go anywhere? It's absolutely going to go somewhere. I think our government has recognized that there've been some anticompetitive activities taking place. Your stock price is about half what it was in May. Does that affect your ability to make acquisitions and move as quickly as you want? Well, clearly, stock prices always have an effect on those kinds of activities. However, I have been recently surprised that ... there have been some companies talking with us that are looking to get in now because then the stock will go up versus coming in at a high price. You put a lot of emphasis on your depth of management skills throughout the organization. What's the secret there? Most investors tell me they buy the management team plus the idea, and that's really what they are investing in. Our team happens to be blessed by having a lot of senior people that are well versed in this business. So, when I need to do things quickly, I don't need to re-explain and re-explain and re-explain. They are out there hitting the road, getting it done, and that's why we move as fast as we do. Some people have looked at the senior team as being pretty top heavy, but not when you're building a global network. You need all the talent you can get. You're probably more than financially secure. Why do you keep doing this? How come everybody keeps asking me that? Do they? Because I love it. I love work. I like building things. You know, I love building the business. I had a great experience at Teleport. We were the first to compete with the local telephone company, which everybody said we couldn't do. And that actually got my juices going more when they said I couldn't do it. This is another Teleport. It's a big one, though.