Carriers won’t listen to Talking Heads

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Former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne penned a tune entitled “Don’t Worry About the Government.” Try telling that to the carriers. The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) is considering prohibiting Qwest from bidding on government contracts after four former Qwest executives were indicted for allegedly reporting revenue not yet received from a deal in Arizona. The GSA also cited a curious 2000 transaction between Qwest and Genuity in its decision to scrutinize Qwest’s ability to do business with the government. Over the summer, the GSA barred MCI from bidding on government contracts due to questionable internal controls and business ethics. The GSA that month also started evaluating Sprint’s ability to do business with the government following billing error of more than $2 million.

https://www.nwfusion.com/edge/news/2003/0919qwest.html

Nine down, four more to go… SBC has been cleared by the FCC to offer long-distance in Michigan. That leaves only Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin without SBC long-distance in the RBOC’s 13-state region. SBC turned up long-distance service in Michigan this week and is awaiting FCC decisions on long-distance applications in its remaining states. The deadline for an FCC decision is Oct. 15.

https://www.nwfusion.com/edge/news/2003/0918sbcmich.html

Sprint last week announced a plan to reduce costs while reorganizing its business structure. The carrier’s goal is to reduce operating expenses by $1 billion annually through 2006, which represents a total cost reduction of 5% to 7%. As part of the plan, the company said it would outsource a handful of its application management and development requirements to EDS and IBM Global Services. Sprint says it expects to reduce costs by $150 million over the next five years through these separate outsourcing deals.

https://www.nwfusion.com/edge/news/2003/0917sprint.html