Ashburn, Virginia-based MCI issued a statement in which it promised to consider Qwest’s new offer in the next two weeks. Meanwhile, New York-based Verizon gave its blessing for MCI to open talks with Qwest, despite it having agreed terms with MCI last month.

Verizon is pretty confident that MCI won’t change its mind. Or as it put it in a press statement: We believe that this process will result in MCI reaching the same conclusion that it reached after seven months of discussions with Qwest.

That said, Verizon knows that it stands to receive a $200m break-up fee should MCI decide to walk away from the merger agreement.

MCI’s decision to meet with Qwest has come after a sustained and highly effective campaign conducted by Qwest’s CEO, Richard Notebaert, who opted to convince MCI shareholders of the merits of Qwest’s $8bn deal after MCI’s board of directors decided to accept the lower $6.75bn deal from Verizon.

Over the last couple of days, Notebaert met with MCI investors and analysts in New York, and then went public accusing MCI of refusing to talk to him.

We need to hear from their board. I think it’s unfortunate that it’s done in the media rather than one-on-one, said Notebaert, who has led Qwest’s recovery from an accounting scandal and deep financial troubles.

Most analysts believe that MCI’s decision to meet with Qwest must not be taken as a sign that MCI’s board has changed its mind. It is more likely that MCI is going through the motions to show investors that it is not shutting Qwest out.

Notebaert has continued to insist that MCI would be better off being acquired by Qwest. He has even outlined an ambitious $10bn in cost savings in the first four years of the potential Qwest-MCI combination. The plan includes axing up to 15,000 jobs, always a popular move to win over a skeptical Wall Street.

Including the cost savings, Qwest asserted that the deal could be nearly twice as valuable to MCI shareholders as the Verizon agreement. Qwest has also again argued that its deal would be far less harmful to competition than a Verizon-MCI combination, and therefore more likely to pass government scrutiny with less objections.

Meanwhile, in a letter, MCI chairman Nicholas Katzenbach dismissed suggestions that Qwest and its offer aren’t being given adequate attention, or that Qwest hasn’t been given the same access to internal information as Verizon.

The MCI board will respond in due course after conducting a thorough review of Qwest’s revised proposal, as it has with all previous proposals, the letter said, noting that the companies held 75 meetings and conference calls over seven months to explore possible deals. The full extent of the MCI review process will be outlined in the MCI filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the upcoming weeks.

While Notebaert might have succeeded in forcing MCI to talk to him, convincing the MCI board that his company offers a better alternative to Verizon is going to be a much tougher fight.