MCI
MCI, formerly known as "WorldCom" and "MCI WorldCom", was a leading communications company. For a time, it was the second-largest long-distance telephone company in the United States.[1]
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| Industry: | Telecommunications |
| Founded: | 1983 |
| Founder(s): | Bernard Ebbers, Bill Fields, David Singleton and Murray Waldron |
| Headquarters: | Ashburn, Virginia |
| Country: | USA |
| Businesses: | The Neighborhood |
| Website: | MCI |
| Key People | |
| Bernard Ebbers, CEO | |
History=
WorldCom was originally founded in 1983 as Long Distance Discount Service, Inc. After growing to become one of the largest long distance providers in the country, WorldCom was forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2002 in the wake of a well-publicized accounting scandal.
WorldCom would emerge from bankruptcy in 2004, rebranding itself as MCI, before being bought by Verizon. Prior to the acquisition, MCI was headquartered in Ashburn, Virginia.[2]
Acquisition
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.[3] The MCI acquisition provided Verizon with an international long-distance network and several large corporate customers. Along with the merger, a new corporate division, Verizon Business, was created to serve medium and large businesses and government customers. Verizon Business became Verizon Enterprise Solutions in 2012.
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.[4]
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:[5]
- Funding - ICANN requires a good financial support from its stake holders as a non-profit organization.
- 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.
- 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.