Letters to the editor

Following are responses to a question about the troubles at MCI detailed in the June 16 story "MCI haunted by vocal critics."

I am a telecom manager with responsibility for more than 1,700 telephone lines, more than 1,500 calling cards, 40 Frame Relay circuits and several voice T1 lines in more than 100 locations. We have been with MCI for over three years.

I find the customer service to be excellent and their telephone and data offerings to be extremely reliable and a great value. The transition from AT&T was a difficult and time consuming task with absolutly no cooperation from AT&T. To change contracts again would be a vastly expensive and in my opinion unnecessary task.

Bill Slade
Naval Postgraduate School

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First — it is WorldCom, not MCI. This seems like a very transparent means of changing your name but not your stripes.

It seems inherently unfair that WorldCom can emerge from bankruptcy with no debt and an unfair advantage over the Sprints, Qwests and AT&Ts of the world by breaking rules and acting unethically.

A just punishment would be to at least have a "suspension" on all federal, state and local bidding rights as added incentive for others to not repeat these offenses.

There are millions of stockholders, like myself, that have no means of recouping our lost investment. Why should the company have the ability to just re-enter the market like nothing ever happened?

Richard Callahan

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The culprits are no longer with the company. Any sanctions at this point hurt only hard-working people who need their jobs and consumers who need the telecommunications services provided by MCI.

This entire campaign is waged by persons who do not understand government contracting or the intricacies of telecmmunications infrastructure.

Punish former CEO Bernard Ebers and the people who caused this debacle, not your next-door neighbor who needs to pay his or her mortgage and send kids to college.

Janis Mercer

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MCI has long been a leader in network management. It is a company that has built and maintains much of the Internet backbone, and, from what I know, serves its customoers well.

The fact that the organization was victimized by a few notorious leaders who have since been dismissed and/or left, should in no way penalize the thousands of dedicated, bright, loyal employees who have stuck with the organization throughout this leadership debacle.

I believe the efforts of those who have re-taken control of the company, together with a workforce that is dedicated to its mission, should be rewarded with additional contracts and renewed confidence.

Joel Rudy
Retired