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To: John Coltrane who wrote (4489)	5/18/1999 6:46:00 AM
From: Anthony Wong	Respond to of 11568

US telco hovers as Optus bid dies Comment by MARK WESTFIELD Australian News Network 18may99 TELECOM New Zealand's intrusion into the AAPT register yesterday is bad news for Chris Anderson and Cable & Wireless's $1.49 billion bid for the upstart telco. Anderson's bid is dead. What is worse, his measly offer for the third-ranked carrier may flush out an even more fiscally muscled player in the form of MCI-WorldCom, which is expected to come in over the top of the plucky Kiwis and grab AAPT from under Anderson's nose. TNZ picked up just under 10 per cent of AAPT yesterday and is expected to declare its hand today. The purchase is friendly as far as AAPT is concerned because it will scare away C&W Optus and its unwanted attentions. After swearing black and blue that his $5 offer was fair, Anderson can hardly come back with a bid pitched above TNZ's $5.70 entry price. His shareholders and banks will tar and feather him and run him out of town. The New Zealanders are fairly small cheese in the telco world, but C&W Optus is in no position to take them on. Anderson's attempt to remove a pesky third player to seek a return to the cosy and profitable duopoly his group enjoyed with Telstra for six years is about to come to a shuddering halt. Not only is he being compressed from above by Telstra, but he will soon have to grapple with a well-funded third player scratching away at his soft underbelly. AAPT chief executive Larry Williams and his chairman, Lee Casey, can hardly contain their glee at Anderson's predicament. Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Allan Fels, who has been so piously sermonising about his intention to rule in a fortnight on the C&W Optus grab at AAPT, now finds that the ground has moved under his feet. His approval was a foregone conclusion given his past track record on Optus and his desire to play the architect of the communications landscape. Although Fels would love to be in a position to tell the Kiwis and the Americans how to run their strategies in Australia, he now finds himself sidelined and irrelevant as this play gets increasingly hotter. He'll be scratching to find anything in the Trade Practices Act to stop either of them from gobbling up AAPT. TNZ is believed to have been prepared to launch a full bid for AAPT, and the 10 per cent it picked up yesterday would have been the basis initially of an alliance between the two telcos. It will be forced to reassess its plans if MCI-WorldCom comes in with a counter-bid priced around the $6 mark. AAPT shareholders will be delighted. The Americans have just pulled out of a $US16.9 billion ($25.5 billion) scrip bid for US cellular phone operator Nextel. AAPT will be a snack by comparison. MCI-WorldCom is in the process of digesting Internet service provider OzEmail, which cost $520 million. It is cashed up and knows where to go for market share. Its main target will be C&W Optus, which has been cruising in a fast-growing market. Its third quarter result showing growth falling 3 percentage points below prospectus forecast shows that it is more hype than substance. The dramatic events swirling around AAPT will leave C&W Optus, in its confusion as to whether it's a cable or cellular operator, to ponder its fate. By keeping its purse strings tight, the second carrier has merely pushed its target into the hands of a more muscled player which will have no mercy in its quest to gnaw away at C&W Optus's market share and customers just as AAPT has been doing so successfully. Anderson has been a relentless lobbyist in Canberra complaining about Telstra's insensitivity. His latest win was yesterday's declaration by Communications Minister Richard Alston that Fels' hand would be strengthened to respond to the dominant carrier's overbearing tactics. If MCI-WorldCom gets AAPT, Telstra will be the least of Anderson's worries. Who's he going to blame then? search.excite.com\|ss=WorldCom;http://www.theaustralian.com.au:80/finance/4269508.htm

To: John Coltrane who wrote (4489)	5/18/1999 6:54:00 AM
From: Anthony Wong	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 11568

Global Crossing vaults into telecom's top tier NEW YORK, May 17 18:42 ET (Reuters) - It's not quite David versus Goliath anymore. As two-year-old telecom upstart Global Crossing Ltd. <GBLX.O> acquires the larger Frontier Corp. <FRO.N> and the much larger U S West Inc. <USW.N>, it is catapulting itself into the ranks of top global service providers like AT&T Corp. <T.N> and MCI WorldCom Inc. <WCOM.O>. Although Denver-based U S West, the smallest of the regional Baby Bell phone service providers, will legally be the surviving entity in the $37 billion deal, the companies will retain the Global Crossing name. It is a sign of the direction the company will take in focusing on delivering voice, data and video throughout the world. Together, Global Crossing, Frontier and U S West had sales of more than $15 billion in 1998, comparable to MCI WorldCom's $17.7 billion, and no longer just a speck compared to AT&T's $53.2 billion in 1998 revenue. But while AT&T is now making a huge bet, with acquisitions and partnerships, on cable lines that go directly into the homes of consumers, Global Crossing will likely find its short-term strength in serving business customers. AT&T, MCI WorldCom, Global Crossing and other will offer similar packages of services to businesses, including high-speed data transmissions, Web site hosting, conferencing and voice calling, analysts said. "All roads lead back to businesses wanting one network service provider for local, national and global services," said Ken McGee, an analyst with market research firm GartnerGroup. Global Crossing began by building a trans-oceanic fiber optic network. Since then, it agreed to buy Frontier for its U.S. network, forming a technologically advanced, international network more inclusive than that of MCI or AT&T. The strength of the company, as it adds business accounts that fill the network with traffic, is its ability to connect about 185 cities worldwide, allowing it to carry traffic without handing it off to other networks. "(Business) customers prefer to have everything on the same network because if something goes wrong, there is a single source for solving the problem," said Pete Dailey, a partner at consulting firm Frost and Sullivan. AT&T and MCI, meanwhile, continue to hand off traffic to other providers. But all three companies contain top-tier Internet service providers and substantial international network assets, and all three will continue to compete for business accounts based on the quality of service. In gaining lucrative business accounts, companies like AT&T and MCI WorldCom have the strength of their reputations. Despite its robust and far-reaching network, Global Crossing is a newcomer, and U S West is burdened by a reputation for poor service to business customers, analysts said. "The few business customers they have will be happy to have a legitimate choice to rival MCI or AT&T," Dailey said. moneynet.com@NEWS-P1&Index=0&HeadlineURL=../News/NewsHeadlines.asp&DISABLE_FORM=&NAVSVC=News\Company