MCI emerged from Chapter 11 protection nearly two years after the resignation of WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers and the discovery of one of the largest accounting frauds in U.S. history. The company emerges from bankruptcy with about $5.7 billion in debt and $6 billion in cash.
MCI said the telecommunications industry is still going through a period of transformation with tough economic conditions. However, Internet usage is still increasing, people are communicating more often and in more ways and computing and communications are converging. MCI believes this convergence unquestionably plays to its core strengths.
“The real winner will be whoever is able to provide simple, converged products and services that can manage digitized content on a global IP network securely and reliably,” Michael Capellas, CEO of MCI.
MCI’s network includes 98,000-miles of fiber and spans more than 4,500 Points of Presence (POPs) throughout the world, with 3.2 million global dial modems and high-capacity connections to more than 96,000 lit buildings. It owns and operates more than 2,400 ATM, Frame Relay and voice switches, as well as 130 data centers in 22 countries on five continents. http://www.mci.com
- In February 2004, MCI selected CIENA and Siemens as key suppliers for a new Ultra Long Haul (ULH) DWDM optical network that will become the foundation by which all MCI services will be delivered. MCI is already carrying traffic on its first ULH network route deployment in the western U.S. and expects to complete its domestic network build-out over a three to five year period. MCI will use Ciena’s CoreStream platform for optical ULH backbone that leverages software-configurable wavelength switching.
- In February 2004, MCI announced an expansion of its MPLS backbone using Cisco System’s equipment. In the first stage of its network expansion, which is currently underway, MCI is working with Cisco on a multi-phased, edge-router deployment in 48 countries throughout North America, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia Pac. Specifically, MCI is deploying the Cisco 10000 Series Router as its IP/MPLS Edge Label Switch Router for its Private IP service platform. Completion is expected by year-end 2004. In the U.S. alone, MCI plans to extend its Private IP network two-fold.
- Also in February 2004, MCI awarded a multi-year Global Master Purchase Agreement to Movaz Networks covering the rapid deployment of its next generation optical transport solutions across its global network. MCI began field deployment of the Movaz RAY product suite in 2002 and is already carrying live traffic in major metropolitan regions for a variety of applications including carrier-to-carrier, enterprise and core infrastructure applications.