August 21, 2002

Industry News Week in Review

Key stories in WorldCom's daily, electronic Internet News and Research Services (INRS) Reports included:

* EarthLink unveiled an aggressive $20 million advertising and marketing campaign that signals a dramatic shift in strategy for Internet service providers: It's less about finding new customers, and more about raiding their competitors, the Chicago Tribune reported.
* Genuity cited a $3 billion loan default and potential need to seek bankruptcy protection in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, according to the Boston Business Journal.
* IBM announced that it won U.S. Department of Defense certification for its UNIX servers, lowering the bar for winning future contracts and allowing it to win a contract to supply UNIX servers for the U.S. missile defense program, as reported by InternetNews.
* High-speed Internet connections may be getting cheaper, but only if customers will settle for a slower version. Hoping to attract Internet users who won't pay the high monthly costs for a typical broadband connection, some ISPs are moving away from a one-speed-fits-all approach and introducing a slower, lower-priced level of service, CNN reported.
* A new report shows sales of high-end routers and switches have taken a plunge in recent months. It proves what everyone in the telecom industry already knows but was too afraid to ask – carriers are pulling back from big network builds and focusing on what they already have to shore up losses, which puts equipment makers in a bind, according to InternetNews.

From inhouse news at WorldCom.

Dan