Telebomb: The Truth Behind the $500-billion Telecom Bust and What the Industry Must Do to Recover

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Amacom, 2005 - Business & Economics - 264 pages

"The business environment of the mid-1990s created a combination of easy money, newly opened markets, and uncontrolled deregulation in the telecommunications industry that caused many businesspeople-honest and dishonest-to propose, fund, and carry out ventures designed to change the way the telecommunications industry worked. Change came quickly, and with it came a corporate tangle that threatens to send the entire industry spinning out of control.

"Telebomb" describes the origins of the chaos and follows each of the long-term trends that originated in the mid-1990s. This thought-provoking book, written by an industry insider, draws conclusions about the ultimate winners and losers during and after the telebomb. After analyzing the effects of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the book takes a much-needed look forward to explore how the industry must change to become more responsive to customers and more profitable for investors -- and to prevent another telebomb."

 

Contents

BEFORE AND AFTER THE BREAKUP OF ATT
9
STABILITY AS THE WORLD CHANGED
25
THE TELECOMMUNICATIONS ACT OF 1996
43
THE SECOND RACE TO COVER THE UNITED STATES IN OPTICAL FIBER
61
THE BIG GET BIGGER THE ENTRY OF THE RBOCs INTO THE LONGDISTANCE MARKET
77
THE LAST STAND OF THE LONGDISTANCE COMPANIES
95
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE COMPETITIVE LOCAL EXCHANGE CARRIERS
117
LOST OPPORTUNITIES BY THE CABLE COMPANIES
137
THE CRASH
159
WHO WON?
185
LIKELY FUTURE WINNERS AND LOSERS
204
A LOOK BACK AND A LOOK FORWARD
222
GLOSSARY AND ACRONYM LIST
240
BANKRUPT TELECOMMUNICATIONS CARRIERS 1988 TO 2003
251
INDEX
255
Copyright

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About the author (2005)

John Handley (Falls Church, VA) worked at Accenture for fifteen years and was promoted to partner in 2000. As a subject-matter expert on network issues, he worked with each of the major telecommunications carriers in North America, including: Verizon/Bell Atlantic/GTE, SBC/Ameritech, BellSouth, Qwest/USWest, AT&T, Lucent, Sprint, Bell Canada, Alltel, MCI/Worldcom, and Global Crossing.

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