Re: Verizon/MCI

The Bell Atlantic/Nynex merger (painful as it was) actually made sense
> and was the right thing to do. Kudos to Ray Smith (former Chairman & > CEO) for having the vision to see the need and "make it so". > The Bell Atlantic/GTE merger is a whole 'nuther kettle of fish. > Ivan wanted to "one up" Ray. It certainly was a bigger merger but as a > result of the *HUGE* "negative dowry" (over $50 Billion) that GTE > brought to the altar, the combined company went from one of the best > debt to equity ratios to one of the worst. At the time of the merger > the dot com boom hadn't gone bust yet and the cash flow was probably > assumed to be strong enough to cover the debt service. > John P. Dearing > A+, Network+, Server+ > To reply: Just drop "YOURPANTS" in my address! 8-)

I agree the Nxnex/Bell Atlantic merger might have been good. I also agree that the GTE/Bell Atlantic merger was a big error, in more then money. They were two different companies.

I don't know about Bell Atlantic, but GTE had bundles of money from selling it non telecom groups as well as merging it AE unit with AT&T. Many people said the GTD5 was not as good as other machines of its kind. It was made to work in many different projects where others would not and it was a log more forgiving then others also.

GTE's merger with Contel was ok at the best, but after the merger they dumped a lot of the Contel areas as some GTE areas. After the GTE/Bell Atlantic areas a lot more were dumped, and the latest was the Hawaiian Telco sales was a big error, it was one of the best run of the system and made lots of money since it was located midway between the US and Japan.

I retired from GTE a few years before the merger and am glad I did. I have d> No.

LB > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: And according to news reports today at >
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Verizon is working now > on a new bid. PAT]

I sure h> I strongly suspect that Verizon is just trying to elevate the price

past that which Qwest can reasonably be expected to be able to pay. > In other words, once the bankruptcy happens to Qwest it would be > childs play for Verizon to roll in and suck all of it up.

I did contact work for USWest as they were being bought by Qwest; the whole area was a mess since no one know what was going to happen.