MCI Communications Corp message to the Bear Stearns & Co Technology Conference arrived too late to make it into today’s page two, but the company said that its capital budget will reach $3,000m this year, almost double 1993’s level: senior vice-president James Hoffman said the outlay would be used inter alia to equip MCI’s network with Synchronous Optical Network technology and Asynchronous Transfer Mode high-speed switching capabilities; the MCI Metro local telephone initiative is up and running in Atlanta, with construction under way in Los Angeles and work planned to begin soon in Washington and Dallas; the Concert joint venture with British Telecommunications Plc now has British Petroleum Co Plc, Glaxo Holdings Plc, First Data Corp and Holiday Inn Worldwide as customers.
