ASHBURN, VA. - Despite industry skepticism about WorldCom's future, new data services and a strong reliance on its IP backbone will be at the heart of the carrier's reorganization as it emerges from Chapter 11 proceedings later this year.

As expected, WorldCom last week filed its in bankruptcy court its three-year plan, which included its corporate name change to MCI. In addition to laying out plans for its future, the carrier said it will launch three services next week and is in the process of beefing up its core network.

"We know we have a lot of work to do," said Michael Capellas, CEO at MCI. "In addition to it being the last day of our 100-day plan, it's the first day on the execution of our three-year plan."

In that vein the carrier says it will launch two bundles for small and midsize businesses (SMB). The first, Business Complete, will combine unlimited local and long-distance voice and DSL for one flat rate, says Ron McMurtrie, vice president of global marketing at MCI. The carrier also will roll out its MCI Business Solutions service bundles for midsize businesses.

The Business Solutions packages will include dedicated data services, such as DSL or fractional T-1 Internet connectivity, plus customer premises gear.

These are not MCI's first services targeted at this market, but they will be supported exclusively over MCI local facilities throughout the country. The carrier teamed with V-Tel in the past, but it now is supporting the services over its own local networks. This eliminates third-party suppliers and reduces costs for MCI because it will absorb all of the service revenues.

MCI also has established an internal sales force to address the SMB market. Most interexchange carriers (IXC) typically address the majority of these customers through sales channels and value-added resellers.

The carrier also is set to launch a VPN service next week at NetWorld+Interop in Las Vegas that "blends private and public networks," McMurtrie says.

The service, called Secure Interworking Gateway, will let customers set up corporate VPNs that use a variety of technologies, such as frame relay, public IP, ATM and DSL, to access secure networks. Users will not have to standardize on one or two access methods, but instead choose the best technology for sites accessing their corporate VPNs.

Edge and local routers will stay in place, but the gateway service will let traffic be handed off to the IP core, McMurtrie says.

This is one example of how the carrier will roll out new services that take advantage of its consolidated IP network. MCI is in the process of migrating all its data networks to a single IP core, says Fred Briggs, CTO. It is deploying 36 multiservice switches throughout its data network to the IP backbone that will transport all traffic. Briggs says the switches will be in place by the end of the month.

Supporting one backbone that all other access networks can bleed into eases management and reduces costs, experts say. It's also a step other IXCs have taken.

MCI has been slow to migrate its core to IP, says Mark Winther, group vice president at IDC. "It's understandable because of the company's financial paralysis, but it's what they should have already "started," he says.