Survey Slams Telecom Mega-Mergers

A recently released University of Connecticut survey says large corporate enterprises believe the proposed $16 billion SBC Communications/AT&T and the $8.5 billion Verizon Communications/MCI mergers will have a "strong negative impact" on pricing, innovation, quality of service and levels of competition in the business telecom marketplace. UC's Center for Survey Research and Analysis (CSRA) ­ commissioned by the Alliance for Competition in Telecommunications (ACTel) that opposes the "mega-mergers" ­ says it interviewed 100 telecom managers random-sampled from Fortune 1000 companies "to candidly assess the attitudes of America's largest businesses on the impact of the proposed mergers." The CSRA survey, "Views of The Proposed AT&T/SBC and MCI/Verizon Mergers: From the Perspective of Fortune 1000 AT&T and MCI Customers," was conducted from July 21 to Aug. 22. Of the companies interviewed, 79 percent were AT&T customers and 49 percent were MCI customers. "The most damning aspect of the survey findings is that these fears are expressed by AT&T's and MCI's own customers. This should be a wakeup call for policymakers ­ the marketplace is not happy with these mergers," says Heather Gold, senior vice president of government relations at competitive carrier XO Communications (a leading member of ACTel).