Irrespective of its decisions on these mergers, the Commission should undertake a comprehensive study of redlining in the long distance, local exchange, and cable TV industries, and develop strong, specific and enforceable standards to prevent these companies from marketing or providing enhanced service on the basis of race, geography or income. There are bad mergers and good mergers. All mergers are not inherently bad and merger executives are not necessarily led by greed or selfishness. Bad mergers preempt competition with neighboring service providers. Bad mergers create spinoffs that advantage only large companies and international firms.
Bad mergers generate layoffs for thousands of hard working employees.
Bad mergers use combined resources to enter overdeveloped, not underdeveloped, markets. Historically, MCI and WorldCom committed these acts and that is why we opposed their merger. After the closing of their merger, they have done little to persuade us to change our position. MCI WorldCom sold its Internet company to a large foreign-based firm and is planning to sell its satellite systems without a commitment to diversity. Furthermore, MCI WorldCom last week announced a layoff of three thousand workers.