MCI

Type:	Publicly held
Industry:	Telecommunications
Founded:	1963
Founder(s):	John Goeken
Headquarters:	Ashburn, Virginia
Country:	USA
Businesses:	The Neighborhood
Website:	MCI verizonbusiness.com
Key People
Ivan G. Seidenberg, Chairman & CEO Bob Toohey, President

MCI, also known as Verizon Business, is a global communications solutions provider with the world's largest internet backbone network based on company-owned points of presence. The company delivers advance communications connectivity to business, government, and consumers.

Background

MCI became a holding company of Verizon after an $ 8.5 billion merger transaction in 2006. Verizon Business was formed as a new business unit of Verizon. At present, the MCI logo still exist on the mci.com website but any customer will be redirected to the verizonbusiness.com website upon clicking any product or services offered.

MCI and ICANN

In August 1999, MCI provided a $500,000 loan to ICANN along with Cisco Systems, which provided $150,000 to the organization, after they were designated to help phase out the government contractors' domain name registration monopoly, to increase competition in the registration of domain names, to reorganize the allocation of Internet Protocol addresses, management of the Internet's root servers, and the assignment of protocol parameters.

According to then ICANN interim president and chief executive, Mike Roberts, the loan was part of the international initiative to provide temporary financial support to the organization until permanent funding was put in place.

In October, 1999, MCI submitted its comments regarding the Tentative Agreements between ICANN, the U.S. Department of Commerce, and Network Solutions. The company emphasized that it has a vital interest in the success of ICANN and the establishment of a competitive environment for the assignment of Internet names and numbers. MCI commented that:

1. Funding - ICANN requires a good financial support from its stake holders as a non-profit organization.
2. Whois Data Base - Access to the registration database is critical to the operations of electronic commerce, therefore it is important that access is not unfairly limited and that it does not create unfair burdens on its users.
3. Prepayment - MCI cited that under the Transition Agreement, Network Solutions is excused from complying with II.J.4 requiring prepayment of domain name registrations for a period of 4 months from the agreement date. According to MCI, the reason for the extension is altogether unclear, especially since Network Solutions announced in July, 1999 that it was introducing a prepayment requirement effective September 1, ostensibly to curtail cybersquatting, and there is no such extension period for any other registrar.