Verizon/MCI Commentary Part II

Michael J Thurston, Sr., is Vice President, Director of Operations at North American Communications, INC and he is a member of the Society of Telecommunications Consultants. Here’s his take on the Verizon/MCI deal:

Verizon’s Acquisition of MCI

One Consultant's View

I believe Verizon acquiring MCI will be a great step for customer service. This has nothing to do with the everyday user, but this will have a great impact in Corporate and Government agencies. For any consultant that has spent hours trying to explain to these vendors their responsibility to the demarcation point, bringing the old Bell System guys back into the business should solve this. Being someone that worked for the old Bell System, I think this is great.

I expect this acquisition to start putting the breaks on all of this VOIP talk. We have no laws in effect to protect customers from the dangers of having every call share the same wire. The same way information can be stolen over the World Wide Web is the same way voice calls can be stolen over the World Wide Web (VOIP). The Bell Companies used to call it a Party-Line. The same companies that build technology to encrypt calls are the same companies that build technology to decrypt calls. There are laws in effect that still protect a single call over a single wire.

I see Sprint as the next long distance company to merge with a former Bell company. I see this happening within the next year.

If you have read the latest news out of DC, the big debate is about cable companies getting into the telephone business. To me this is the main reason the phone companies are starting to lay new fiber to possibly add TV services. The bottom line we are still a wired nation. He who controls the wire pretty much controls everything.