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Technology Stocks : (LVLT) - Level 3 Communications -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Curtis E. Bemis who wrote (981)	5/16/1998 2:15:00 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3873

Curtis, nice to see you here. All, >>Question- What's LVLT gonna do to keep up ?? << I'm still trying to figure out what it is that L3 DOES that sets them apart, in contrast to all of the press and financial goings on. Never mind what they're going to do to "keep up." I'm serious. And maybe I've been following the wrong analysts discussions and magazine articles, but what is their niche or claim to fame other than the cast of players that they boast. And their backers. The same backers who not long ago backed a model that only emulated the dominant local and long distance players of the time spurred on by the ability to create a platform that allowed discounts against commodity services, as it now turns out. The same services that are being treated with disdain today, only several years later. And the fact that they may have purchased a CLEC or two, and they've chosen LEAF fiber. Anyone care to enlighten me? What will differentiate them from QWEST or any one of the other more progressive backbone providers? Supporting Layer 3 of the OSI RM is nothing new, and by the time they realize a two year or longer time to market with their buildout (from what I've gathered), two or more generations of next-gen telco- or anymedia- technologies will have lapsed. I hope they have their trajectories set right for that far out. This is Internet time we're talking about, not the era of 1989-94 where the first triumphs were realized. I keep looking for megadeals from L3, but don't see any. Perhaps this will change in the next 48 hours, or in the next two months, and if that be the case, I will gladly retract this criticism at that time. The "all-IP" network infrastructure catch slogan has to be taken with a very large grain of salt, IMHO. For it to be true, they would have to be willing to forfeit a great many legacy-linked opportunities. OK, they aren't putting in any legacy circuit switching "machines" under the banner of L3. <Or are they?> Instead, they acquire operators who have embedded Class 5 circuit switches already in place, and declare them to be "bridging components" to IP telephony. I find this to be less than genuine, although very practical and necessary. But they are not alone in this by any means. I'm not saying there is none, but I simply can't see where a notable differentiation exists in their fundamental strategy. Anyone care to explain this to me and point out the ills of my ways? If it's real technical, I'm pretty sure we'll be able to hack it. If not, I'll ask the good Doctor for some tutoring in PM. <s> Thanks, Best Regards, Frank Coluccio