PTT Telecom Netherlands and Televerket – Swedish Telecom announced at Telecom ’91 in Geneva the formation of a new alliance provisionally called Unicom GMNS – Global Managed Network Services – which, a spokesman for the Dutch company described as our answer to Syncordia – British Telecommunications Plc’s global managed network (CI No 1,776). The same BT operation was also the target of an unprecedented outpouring of spleen that occured when MCI Communications Corp president Bert Roberts attacked BT’s temerity in trying to set up a global operation without a US partner. In the kind of statement that tends to haunt people in future years, he described BT’s probability of success as zero chance, none. This gung-ho market assessment probably had something to do with the fact that Roberts had just announced that Infonet 25%-owned by MCI in partnership with a string of European and Pacific carriers – may expand its range of services in the future to include voice, positioning it directly against the British Telecom service. MCI is the second largest long distance carrier in the US, with approximately 15% of the market. The Swedish-Dutch venture should be operational by the middle of next year, offering a range of international managed network services: it will gradually absorb the international value-added network businesses of its owners, and the current 30 employees will be increased to 100 within a year according to the partners. The companies shied away from saying whether they had been approached to become part of Syncordia, but a spokeswoman for the Dutch PTT explained that they didn’t like the idea of only being a minor partner with little control over the consortium’s direction; much the same complaint as has kept Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp and the Deutsche Bundespost Telekom from signing up. As one of their first steps PTT Telecom Netherlands and Televerket will merge their overseas offices, so don’t both looking for a Telecom Netherlands office in London any more, they are already ordering the new stationary. The joint venture will begin by offering a pan-European service, extending gradually worldwide – it expects to have have 10 managed network hubs across Europe by the end of 1992.
