When Telecom Mergers Hit Home

netbuzz writes "A telecom manager submitted an essay to Network World that paints a sadly humorous picture of what the mega-telecom mergers really mean on the ground." From the article: "Well, when I heard that these companies were about to combine forces, it made my blood run cold. How would they be able to take, in each case, two companies with already broken processes and mediocre customer support and successfully merge them? How could they continue to provide me with the support I need to keep my company's networks functioning as they need to in this age of the bandwidth junkie? The answer ... at this moment, is they can't!"

Been there done that

[David E. Smith]

I'm in exactly this kind of situation right now. I'm trying to set up a new DS3 for dialup Internet customers (lol, I know, but there are still a lot of 'em and they pay my salary), and get some numbers ported, and it's a nightmare. Our SBC sales rep of almost ten years isn't allowed to place orders, our new AT&T salesman is a nincompoop, and these processes that would have been trivial this time last year are turning into a trainwreck.

Re:Been there done that

[cyber-dragon.net]

I agree... I just tried to get phones and a T1 put in for my companies new location and SBC in SIX weeks could not acomplish it.

Two weeks before deadline I gave up when they were telling me mid April for a March 30th move and went with a third party for the T1... they got it in 7 days, a reasonable time frame.

I told them as I cancled the T1 order the phones were next if they could not get them in on time so they "expadited" the order. Which, as far as I can tell, means "put actual effort."

The real kicker was after everything was done and we have our third party T1 put in over SBC lines in a fraction of the time SBC could do it, I get an e-mail from our SBC account rep saying he could not get hold of me could I give him my phone number. I am going to frame it! An email from the phone company asking for my phone number.

Good thing I did not let them put the T1 in or I could not have gotten the e-mail!

Personal Experience

[PacketScan]

Having a T1 moved Post SBC purchase.
From the 4th floor to the 3rd floor.
Took 36 days and 8 people to move 1 T1 Line 1 floor.
It's fucking ridiculous.
I would hate to see what would happen after the bellsouth acquisition.

Re:Welcome to the world of tomorrow

[mc6809e]

Since there can be no practical competition to a land line phone provider

Bah. Cellphones are a counter-example. I have no land line and use cell phones for my phone service.

What you might have meant is that wire-based communication is a kind of natural monopoly. But even that allows for some competition. Consider for example how cable is now offering telephone service.

Stop with this foolish deregulation before it's too late....

Nah. What we REALLY need is to deregulate public rights of way. Local governments decide who will and who won't be allowed to run wire from telephone pole to pole or in pipes underground. They're the biggest barriers to competition because they essentially make it illegal by preventing alternatives.

And why? Because they get up to 5% of the GROSS revenues of the company that they give the monopoly to.

Local government is in it for the money as much as the corporations are.

The same sort of thing happens in wireless communication, though to a less extent.

But for a good contrast between regulated and unregulated rights of way, compare the explosion in development of devices in the unregulated 2.45gHz band to all other bands.

3-way calling can help here

[Animats]

It's really useful when dealing with vendor finger-pointing to have the capability to get both vendors on the line and connect them with each other. That tends to cut down on the finger pointing.

They hate that. But it gets results.

Especially when you say "This call is being recorded for quality control purposes".

Mergers aren't about serving you better

[Anonymous Coward]

They're about removing 'unnecessary' competition and price pressure. Thanks to the mass corporate adoption of Jack Welch's 'I'm either #1, #2 or I'm out of a market' philosophy and application of the 'Beautiful Mind' guy's girl-selection theory to customers, we're going to end up with a world where every product you can think of -- everything -- will be Coke vs Pepsi vs Dr. Pepper and absolutely nobody else. You'll have a mind-numbing array of of logos, pretty boxes and commercial spokes-androids to pledge allegiance to, though.

Re:3-way calling can help here

[k8to]

Speaking as someone who used to work in support for vendors of network products, a three way call with the customer and the network provider was something I _loved_. In fact I sometimes used to just get the customer to fork over the provider contact info and call the network vendor on the line immediately.

Once upon a time, this is what support was about: getting problems fixed, getting crap working. I got out of support when I could see where that 'industry' was headed.

Not to mention this kind of action earned huge customer respect. And helping customers who respect your suggestsions is _so_ much more pleasant than helping ones who do not.

Most mergers are mistakes

[Anonymous Coward]

"Various studies have shown that mergers have failure rates of more than 50 percent. One recent study found that 83 percent of all mergers fail to create value and half actually destroy value. This is an abysmal record. What is particularly amazing is that in polling the boards of the companies involved in those same mergers, over 80% of the board members thought their acquisitions had created value. We are beginning to understand some of the reasons why these mergers fail."

from http://executiveeducation.wharton.upenn.edu/course .cfm?Program=MA [upenn.edu]