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To: KevRupert who wrote (6245)	4/4/2000 11:48:00 PM
From: KevRupert	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 11568

The FCC Should Not Oppose the Sprint-MCI WorldCom Deal Red Herring December 1999 "Even the most naive market watchers must have expected the Federal Communications Commission interest in Sprint?s all-share merger with MCI WorldCom. A merger between the second and third-largest players in a market would excite the antitrust instincts of any market regulatory. But a cursory investigation is as far as the FCC needs to go. Opposing the merger would be disastrous. "We have always believed that effective mergers usually benefit consumers and shareholders, and that the only justification for opposing a merger is if the government can prove that prices would rise. But in the case of the Sprint MCI deal we also have specific objections. Any FCC block would likely be founded on the notion that the merger would stitch up the U.S. long-distance telephone market. But voice will be among the least significant elements of telecommunications traffic in the early 21st century: every major telecom player is now engaged in a struggle to bundle data, video, audio and voice services. The Sprint-MCI merger might create a major U.S. Supplier of these bundled services. But that market is still in the making, and an FCC block would kill the creation of such a supplier at birth. "If the FCC is serious about avoiding a monopoly in the long-distance phone services space, then it should be vigilant to ensure that the merged company doesn?t abuse its market position. But the veto should stay holstered. Drawing it when nobody knows how the fast-moving communications sector will look ten years from now would simply cripple U.S. contenders. There?ll be time enough to play Wyatt Earp later."