With World Com’s $4 Billion “accounting error” as our inspiration, let’s review some recent poster boys in the telecommunications racket:
- Ken Lay: Stepped down in January after Enron tanked. Traded everything from bandwidth to employees’ investments.
- Benard Ebbers: Resigned in April after SEC began investigation of World Com. Borrowed $366 million for a personal loan.
- Dennis Kozlowski: Former CEO of Tyco filled his offices and residences with Monet, Renoir. A 14 count indictment says he made profits appear to grow faster than they actually did.
- John Rigas: Head of Adelphia Communications, the nations 6th largest cable tv company, had a family racket, pocketing about $3.1 billion off the balance sheet.
- Gary Winnick: Global Crossing CEO, bailed with $734 million in stocks before his company crashed.
Meanwhile, Denver-based Qwest has asked its employees to take unpaid leave, saw its debt rating slashed to “junk” status, put assets up for sale, and faced an accounting probe by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Perhaps a re-birth in city-run telecommunications facilities is in order. The Oregonian’s Jeffrey Kosseff reviewed city-run communications networks in Oregon. Tim Pozar trying to get San Francisco bureaucrats to develop a public wireless network. Maybe the time has arrived.
With “open access”, commercial Wireless ISPs might get their bread and butter by providing cellular operators with “wireless T-1″ backhaul lots cheaper than TPC. The rest is gravy. Nextel will use Flarion’s “4G” system in 10 MHz of bandwidth in the 2.1 GHZ band. Police and Fire might be persuaded to share - with enough payola!
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