Level 3

[jml at packetpimp.org (Jason LeBlanc)]

To boot almost all the original Telcove crew we had are gone.  They're 
losing the better people through attrition as they're frustrated at not 
being able to help their customers.  I also have a feeling Level3 makes 
changes during business hours that are not announced.  I have no proof 
but I have a feeling due to some odd changes in routing I see every now 
and then.

Shane Ronan wrote:
> I could not agree with the points below more.
>
> Prior to the mergers, I had multiple services each with Looking Glass, 
> Wiltel and Broadwing and Level3. After Level3's round of acquisitions 
> the service level for all four of them went way down.
>
> I've had the experience of not being able to resolve issues with 
> Wiltel circuits because there was no techs available who could access 
> the gear, been told they no longer wished to provide me with a Type 2 
> service sold to me by Looking Glass or Broadwing, and had billing and 
> implementation issues that have lasted almost two years with Level3, 
> because they started moving services from one billing system to another.
>
> Given that Level3's prices are usually not even close to competitive 
> with solutions provided by other providers, I would suggest that 
> people look elsewhere for reliable, reasonably priced services.
>
> Shane
>
> On Jul 2, 2009, at 2:50 PM, Deepak Jain wrote:
>
>>
>> Without continuing the L3 pile-on, one can easily glean from their 
>> public filings that they have never properly filled out their 
>> management depth in acquisition absorption and/or sufficiently 
>> empowered those folks. The billions in revenue lost from acquisitions 
>> like Genuity and others have told this story more than once.
>>
>> L3 is not alone in this. Worldcomm's failure to integrate 
>> acquisitions led to a much larger operational cash need than VZ has 
>> shown for the same assets (verio, lots of other names here). This is 
>> because VZ understands how traditional businesses acquire others, 
>> better, in my opinion.
>>
>> Unfortunately, L3 has shown little interest in making the "real 
>> world, tough business" cuts in heads and absorbing the real 
>> (internal) pain of acquisitions and seems to have a pretty 
>> laissez-faire attitude towards its customers, even at its senior 
>> management levels (Cxx). I think this will be (and has been) the 
>> biggest problem for them. Even a possible merger/JV with Sprint may 
>> not be sufficient to solve that. Their resolution of billing disputes 
>> is much more typical of WCOM than VZ.
>>
>> They are a big fish in lots, and lots, of markets. They enjoy being 
>> able to dictate pricing in them. IMO, however, they don't have the 
>> maturity of (say, AT&T or others) to take that big fish status and 
>> leave you still happy with the service. (colloquially: if [good 
>> companies] are going to take advantage, at least they don't make it 
>> more painful than necessary).
>>
>> Operationally, where you have options (because of pricing, locality, 
>> etc) it's long-term good to support competitors, diversity in 
>> connectivity, etc. History has shown time and time again that when an 
>> industry consolidates a lot of business with a certain vendor, bad 
>> things can and do occur.
>>
>> Deepak Jain
>> AiNET
>>
>>
>>
>
>