Cable & Wireless closes its MCI WorldCom chapter
 
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After buying MCI's Internet business in late 1998 for $1.75 billion, Cable & Wireless may finally be rid of the MCI WorldCom legacy that came along with the purchase.
Cable & Wireless bought more than 3,300 customers of dedicated Internet access; 60,000 dial-up business customers; 250,000 dial-up consumer customers; and more than 1,300 wholesale ISP customers. The company also picked up MCI's nationwide Internet backbone.
But while Cable & Wireless got the all-important customer and network assets, the service provider claims it didn't receive everything it should have. In April last year Cable & Wireless filed a lawsuit against MCI WorldCom, stating that MCI did not live up to its end of the deal.
The 23-page civil action accuses MCI of not:
- Sending over pertinent customer records.
- Sending over enough sales, engineering or customer support staff.
- Refraining from soliciting MCI Internet customers to move over to UUNET's Internet backbone.
- Providing proper billing systems.
What the statement issued last week by Cable & Wireless did not say is whether MCI WorldCom admitted any wrongdoing. Cable & Wireless' President of North America operations Wharton (Zie) Rivers would not directly address that question. But Rivers did say that "the settlement is a satisfactory solution, of what was clearly a distasteful situation for both companies and our customers.
"We have obviously, over the course of time, worked out some of the other issues. We were concerned some of our business was harmed due to the slow and in some cases not timely release of information," Rivers says.
So, while MCI WorldCom may not have outwardly admitted wrongdoing, it seems that additional customer or billing information was provided to Cable & Wireless. Perhaps giving over the information now is an implicit admission by MCI WorldCom that it should have done so right off the bat.
For Cable & Wireless, the issue is settled. Now the company can focus on beefing up its Internet backbone and offering new services.
But the issue for MCI WorldCom may not be over. Check out the next ISP newsletter to find out why MCI WorldCom is still concerned about selling off Internet businesses.
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Denise Pappalardo is a senior editor for Network World, covering ISPs, VPNs and related topics. Reach her at denisep@nww.com.
Internet Services archive
Past newsletters.
Network World, 06/21/99.
MCI WorldCom coughs up $200 million
Network World, 03/01/00.
C&W getting ISP act together
Network World, 03/01/00.
