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To: Brian Malloy who wrote (49677)	11/13/1999 12:12:00 AM
From: 16yearcycle	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 152472

Friday November 12, 11:39 pm Eastern Time Regulators unlikely to back MCI-Sprint deal-report WASHINGTON, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Federal regulators are unlikely to approve MCI WorldCom Inc.'s (NasdaqNM:WCOM - news) proposed $115 billion purchase of Sprint Corp. (NYSE:FON - news), the Washington Post said in its Saturday edition. Quoting knowledgeable sources, the newspaper said a merger between the second- and third-largest long-distance telephone carriers in the United States would be viewed as a severe blow to competition. The firms are expected to file their merger application with the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday. They announced their proposed union in early October. ''Sources said the fusion, as announced, would violate antitrust standards used by regulators to assess the effects on competition, concentrating control of the long-distance market in too few hands,'' the article said. The resulting firm, plus the No. 1 U.S. long distance telephone carrier AT&T Corp. (NYSE:T - news), would control nearly 80 percent of the long-distance market in the country, a level the article said far surpasses federal standards. Company officials were not immediately available for comment. FCC Chairman William Kennard cast doubt on the deal shortly after it was formally announced, telling reporters competition had produced a price war in the long distance market and proclaiming: ''This merger appears to be a surrender.'' Kennard said the parties ''will bear a heavy burden to show how consumers would be better off.'' MCI WorldCom President and Chief Executive Officer Bernard Ebbers then took up the challenge in an editorial page column in the Wall Street Journal. ''There are two titans that have the potential to establish telephone hegemony -- AT&T and the Bell operating companies,'' he wrote. ''A merged MCI WorldCom and Sprint represents the best hope for a strong and effective alternative...''