Early on, NorthPoint's main goal was to grow large. It fought for greater access to Baby Bell phone networks and concentrated on selling to Internet service providers. Verizon backs out By last year, though, it had spent much of its cash and growth as an independent company seemed more tenuous. Fetter and her management team would have run the combined operations. Verizon backed out of its contract last November, after NorthPoint restated its third-quarter financial results because some key customers had not paid their bills.
Fetter speaks with bitterness about the withdrawal.
Though Fetter denied late last year that layoffs were looming, NorthPoint has been forced to sharply scale back its operations, including cutting staff from 1,800 to 1,000. Cost-cutting makes the money go further, but Fetter acknowledges that the situation is serious.