If you could pick a management team – personnel gleaned from other telecoms – Who would your picks be? CEO, COO, CTO for instance.  Who do you believe are the most dynamic and innovative of the current telecom execs?  –Thanks!!

Dave: Your question is sort of like fantasy football but telecom related.

If I could bring back the dead the answer would be Ron Bittner, Chairman & CEO of Frontier, as Chairman. He had vision and ethics. My  CEO pick (though I will be a free agent soon with limited restrictions I will abstain)  would be Bill LaPerch of AboveNet. He has discipline, focus and understands it is a people business he is in not a spreadsheet business. Bill is a graduate of West Point–you don’t get much better than that. West Point graduates people with honor, integrity, morals and high ethics – most of our telecom criminals, or those who play the legal system to steal, have been primarily Ivy League associated, so I would go with the West Point guy as CEO.

For COO, Frank Chiano from FiberTech, Frank and I worked together in the early days at what is now called FiberTech.  Though we agreed to disagree on a few things, Frank stayed with our initial strategy and plan and I went on an build AFS. With the recent FiberTech M&A announcement, I would choose Frank.

Chief Marketing Officer – slam dunk Bob Ingalls–retired from Verizon–who is on our Board. Great man. I highly respect him I am amazed he worked at Verizon as he is more non-ILEC like than ILEC–customer oriented and understands it’s the customer-employee relationship that rewards share owners. share owners benefit in third place by having great customer-employee relationships first. This implies you take care of ALL your employees and how they are treated, in turn they treat customers well which them brings returns to share owners.

Chief Technology Officer…that is a difficult one. I am so solutions-focused and customer-focused I rarely pay attention who the CTO is of a given company. A good CTO should be seen but not heard or near customers–customers buy solutions and peace of mind. A CTO may talk too much about things customers don’t know or care about even though the CTO understands the inherent importance. Customers want reliability, not a story about disk mirroring or session level control.  Just my opinion…

For CFO, I would select AFS’s very own Gita Ramachandran (who will also be a free agent shortly just like myself with minimum restrictions). Why Gita? I have worked with her for ten years; she is highly structured, disciplined and well organized systematically, relative to finance and accounting. For a 110 lb women she once “broke” a new hire at his first day of work by noon.  He quit. Never even came back from lunch. I am talking about an honorably discharged United States Marine – yes, Gita is well disciplined. When you can break a fighting machine like a US Marine within 4 hours; now that’s moxy. In addition, for ten years Gita and I raised every dime of equity and debt for this company without the use of a paid intermediary (i.e. Broker, Investment Banker) and even the pending merger with Zayo was orchestrated at a nice multiple without an intermediary collecting a fee. We learned early, if you are good at what you do, you can call the same person an intermediary would do and they will listen just as well without the go between.

On Corporate Development (aka M&A, Business Development) I would go with Dave Danchak of AFS, yet another soon to be free agent. Dave and I go back well over thirty years and I can tell you he is consistent, smart and ethical. He will not compromise his integrity or the integrity of the company brand just to make a “deal”. Translated, he does not lie or play games in parsing words on deals or relationships. To give you an idea why character counts, when I started AFS, Dave was the first employee I hired. We had not seen each other in nine years but when I called he showed interest in the AFS opportunity and the values/culture of the business I wanted to build around serving customers. He joined the day after we met for Bagels, having read the business plan over night. My point: if I was of suspicious, unethical character back in the days Dave and I actually worked for the same company, Dave would have blown me off and vice-versa – I would have not contacted Dave as my first choice to anchor AFS with me. Yes, character, ethics and integrity counts now and for all anyone knows, years down the road as well. As a person, Dave is family to me – like many of the people here at AFS.

So here we are in Oz. A gentleman by the name of Tom Tauke from Verizon is all over the news with the proclamation that the Wicked “Network Neutrality” Witch is dead, and that the Verizon and Google proposal on net neutrality “…would allow President Obama to meet a promise he made on the campaign trail.”  He adds, “It fulfills the president’s campaign promise of non-discrimination and transparency on the Internet.”

I have so many directions to go with this one, I’m not even sure where to start.  (Don’t worry Jules–I’ll get to you my little pretty…just hang on–)

First thing:  Since when are publicly traded companies (and their share owners) in the business of making campaign promise dreams come true?  Also, are Verizon and Google share owners 100% aligned on supporting a campaign promise of any politician?

On campaign promises:  There isn’t a politician that promises the sun, moon and stars when they are running for office. Lots of promises get made. I am not a member of any political party so I won’t pick on all the promises Candidate Obama made during the campaign but I will leave it at this–the blaming-George-W. days are over.

On this new Verizon-Google (VG) network neutrality proposal:  I have not read it, but I can tell you we don’t need it. Okay I lied…I peaked at it.  It’s a vein attempt at volume level pricing. But the facts are, and Congress–listen carefully here, the issue with “access” is at the peering points, not with the “pipe owners.”  Peering point providers are an oligopoly and points-of-traffic flow, balance and control are managed by the oligopoly. This is where Jules should be looking as VG protects their distributed computing architectures and billions in sunken costs with their proposal versus the big pink elephant in the room,  Internet peering points.  Jules, bring a draft law to President Obama around peering points for submission to Congress.  You may want to hurry up–the flying monkeys are leaving the Castle.

But I really wonder if Jules can do something even if he wanted to do anything. Why, you may ask?

As we all know, we have this thing which lately has been ignored. It’s called the Constitution of the United States of America. I think it has been around for a while.  It’s that document with the big signature from that guy that is in the insurance business, John Hancock. (You can tell by now the quality of my public education!)

Anyhow, when Johnny H. and his friends signed this Constitution they came up with this stupid idea that only Congress can enact laws of the land and that the Executive branch, once signed into Law at the Kremlin White House, is responsible for various departments (aka bureaucrats) to administer the rule of law.  My BFF Jules has gone down several paths recently in making up new laws (such as the now defunct option 3) acting as a one person, one vote, Congress himself.  Jules–I am pleased you have backed off this.  It would have gotten ugly again for the FCC and, dare I say, eventually another loss against the ILECs in a court of law.  Sort of like that Comcast thing a while back.  Jules–I hope you consider me a friend in advising you earlier not to pursue option 3.

All this said, how is the VG network neutrality “proposal” going to make it into “law?”  After all, I make proposals all the time in this blog and no one makes them into law.   I think I have had some pretty good ideas, albeit not politically correct or expedient. But then again, I am not on the campaign trail writing checks with my mouth that my @$$ can’t cash. Some of our politicians should start a business with nothing–like I did.  One quickly learns, by way of your investors, about writing checks with your mouth that.

So far, and to President Obama’s credit, he has pretty much neutered Congress like a stray cat caught by the ASPCA. Congress can hiss all they want, but pro-creating…not so fast anymore.

You see, they have these people in the Executive Branch called Czars.   In my opinion, these Czars are nothing more than replication in the Executive branch of committees (and the like) that make up Congress. The big thing our man from Chicago has done a thorough job on is shifting the power from Congress to the Czars.  And, from a political point of view, it is brilliant.

You see, power inside the beltway is all about who spends the money (or debt). Keep in mind–it is taxpayer money from us worker bees which they seem to forget inside the beltway.  Maybe a few bee stings are coming this November.

Anyhow, the Congress has been used to approve all sorts of spending bills “campaign promises,” and get this–the Czars in the Executive Branch choose how, and to whom, to spend it.  Something tells me Johnny H. and the Boys back then were sort of trying to get away from things like Kings, Monarchs, Czars and the like.  Call me crazy.  In my short life span, I always thought all appropriations were clearly made through Congress and that only Congress could pass laws. That public education I received sure didn’t teach me a lot about history.

What is going to be interesting to watch is how VG is going to attempt to get their “proposal” in place without Congress.  I think Jules is a pretty smart guy and has the lay of the land.  It is clearly not a Czar issue or an Executive Order issue.  Watching how VG (especially the V) finesse this going forward is going to be fascinating.  It’s also interesting how, a few months back, the G was anti-ILEC on net neutrality, but recently had a change of heart.  Sorta like changing Frankenstein’s heart.  A used heart, but a replacement never the less. (This epiphany in change of heart came about once G figured out what they thought G wanted in network neutrality would hurt their search business.  I wrote a previous blog about this–I think G is in some anti-trust situation over in Europe for monopolizing equal access, open access “search.”)

I can’t see anyway but through Congress on this one.  And I am sure after the November mid-term elections that, come January, 2011 Congress will be chomping at the bit to keep another campaign promise by President Obama. I just feel it in my bone marrow.

Speaking of promises:  Hey G–how is that big one town or City fiber-to-the-home contest coming along?  No winner announced yet?  Or, are you playing off of FIOS now as positioning to go to Congress with some data in support of your proposal? Meanwhile, you played a bunch of people for fools using them to say to Congress “look at the outpouring for bandwidth we received?”

Come to think about it, I may have written a blog about this as well.  I think I used the term “useful idiots” for the applicants.

If today is the first time you have run across this blog, welcome.  No, you are not dreaming–it is, in fact, WYSIWYG.  And I do walk on water as well.  I’m happy to show you–just come up to Rochester, NY in February to see.

Now it’s time to go home.  Everyone, close your eyes, click your heals three times and then say “There is no place like home…there is no place like home…there is no place like home…”

Two years ago, on our 25th Wedding Anniversary, my wife received notice that she had breast cancer. It’s an anniversary we will never forget. She has gone through the treatments and even to this day, a certain amount of discomfort remains from the radiation treatments but that discomfort is better than having missed that mammogram two years ago.

So my message to all my readers or just pass this link on – ladies get your yearly mammogram. The earlier the cancer is diagnosed, the higher the odds you will survive. My wife and I are on the five-year waiting curve, but given the stage at which the cancer was identified, she has a probability of 98% survival after five years.

So please, pass this along, tell your spouse, mother, grandmother, sister, sister-in-laws, nieces, neighbor, co-workers or aunts … do not wait and make an appointment today!

My personal philosophy, when a company is not firing on all 8-cylinders, is not to go down to the boiler room and scream at the people shoveling coal into the furnace. They are just doing what they are being told.

My personal opinion is that when change is needed at a company, it needs to start at the top.  Not at the bottom, not in the middle but the very top. If execution problems are the result of a lack of alignment within the organization, I suggest terminating a top executive or two who just may have a silo mentality, this action will change things fast–provided that the CEO has not been a demonstrable “King” at his company. Big companies like fiefdoms. Fiefdoms create overhead, useless meetings and a lack of focus on execution…in my opinion.

Culture is another area. It’s just not a set of values you print on a web site. Culture is set by example and actions by the CEO. Period. You can’t have a Vice President of Culture. I will always remember walking into Enron to meet with Enron Broadband about 6-months before their collapse. My impression was a culture of arrogance and it extended from the receptionist in the lobby through everyone we met. I have yet to experience a culture as blatantly arrogant, with a condescending set of attitudes as I did that day. There was not one person I met that was not high on themselves, behaving as an all-knowing and superior entity. In a similar manner, this is the same rub I see in telecom. ILECs by 100-year plus cultural heritage histories are arrogant and difficult. But CLECs, even at a few billion in sales, are nothing in the scheme of things…and yet, certain CLECs have cultures of arrogance.

One of the first presentations I made at Frontier as their new President (circa 1993) was with a block organization chart. The gasps in the room when at the top of my chart I had a box that was labeled “customers” and then those functions closest to the customer were in boxes in descending order. And guess who was at the bottom of the chart? Me.  I explained that I was the least important person to the customer but perhaps the most important to the organization in setting expectations, direction, strategy, etc. and making needed adjustments along the way to assure our customers were served well, that we had a solid reputation and that the organization was customer-centric, not Dave-Rusin-centric. This was a huge culture change, but with time and adjustments, it was embraced and we were very successful.

Then to top it off, my personal belief is in employees. All employees are here to lead, to think, to ask questions and to challenge–regardless of title. The biggest secret of all–and it takes a lot of effort–is making sure employees have interesting work.  If they don’t, then the gossiping and rumor mongering have an ability to feast. If work is not interesting, you need to ask yourself–and for the sake of that human being–should we outsource the work? If it’s not interesting or value adding, then why are we doing it? The best thing you may actually do for an individual if you cannot find them interesting work is to let them go. I ran a subsidiary at Kodak as a turnaround, I watched for years pigeon-holed employees at the big Kodak mother ship with people just “doing time” with mundane work just marking time, sort of like prison, hoping to get by and make in to that pension. I am sorry but I value human life and how someone chooses to”do time” when there is so much to choose from in life that just escapes me. That said, that is the nature of human beings, and I recognize that.

What does all this have to do with Level 3? A lot. I believe their struggles are less about kit and financial. The practicality is the fundamental performance obstacles at Level 3 are not being addressed by the Board of Directors.

I am a friend of Dr. Andrew Odlyzko from the University of Minnesota.  For as long as I can remember, Andrew’s focus has been on bandwidth growth, demand, capacity, etc.  For years we have exchanged thoughts, data points, predictions, Wall Street analytics, research reports and–on occasion from myself–some off-beat humor.

Dr. Odlyzko is a leading authority and scholar on issues relating to telecom bandwidth.  He travels extensively to report his findings at conferences and  contributes to various scholarly publications.

Dr. Odlyzko has given me a preliminary copy of his latest research covering the past ten years of telecom, with focus on the affects of technology bubbles. I asked for permission to share the work with my readers. I think you will find the work interesting and well presented.

Before I share with you the link, all Dr. Odlyzko wants from you, my loyal readers, are any observations or feedback on this preliminary draft soon to be published. Hey, if you’re really insightful, you may even get footnoted!

First a message from the Doctor:

Enclosed below is an announcement of a paper on technology bubbles.  It is based largely on the Internet bubble of a decade ago, and concentrates on the “Internet traffic doubling every 100 days” tale.  As the paper shows, this myth was perceived in very different ways by different people, and this by itself helps undermine the foundations of much of modern economics and economic policy making.

To get a better understanding of the dynamics of that bubble, to assist in the preparation of a book about that incident, I am soliciting information from anyone who was active in telecom during that period.

I would particularly like to know what you and your colleagues estimated Internet traffic growth to be, and what your reaction was to the O’Dell/Sidgmore/WorldCom/UUNet myth.  If you were involved in the industry, and never heard of it, that would be extremely useful to know, too.

Ideally, I would like concrete information, backed up by dates, and possibly even e-mails, and a permission to quote this information. However, I will settle for more informal comments, and promise confidentiality to anyone who requests it.

Sincerely and Dave’s BFF,

Andrew Odlyzko
odlyzko@umn.edu

You may find the link to this outstanding scholarly research at:

http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/mania03.pdf

Bubbles, gullibility, and other challenges for economics, psychology, sociology, and information sciences

Andrew Odlyzko
School of Mathematics and Digital Technology Center
University of Minnesota
odlyzko@umn.edu
http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko
Preliminary version, August 5, 2010

Don’t get me wrong–once upon a time, I was Mr. “The Glass is 2/3 Full.” But a co-worker of mine, “Randy” was one of the most cynical persons I have ever known. We have known each other close to 30 years now and I have grown to value cynicism from my mentor.

I once heard George Will (he writes newspaper columns on politics and is on a Sunday political talk show) say (and I’m paraphrasing here): It’s good to be cynical. Because 80% of the time you are right and the other 20% of the time you are delighted with the results.

Today, it’s about Google and Europe.

Over the years I have learned to watch the “smart people” trying to outsmart one another. In some instances, the “smart person,” in a matter of time, self-destructs…you know–from being so smart and all. And sometimes the smart people outsmart themselves into failure. I think we call them the elitists.

Rewind to a few blogs back when I exalted the ignorance of Google in the United States pushing for network neutrality. I addressed why their smart idea of supporting net neutrality was not really a smart idea for Google. In and of itself, net neutrality is just the first war in a Federal government administration that wants to regulate (take over) everything in order to control and determine what is good for everyone. I even theorized that net neutrality was less of an issue than “search neutrality.”

Google was so deep into bed with FCC Chairman, Jules, on this issue a year ago, that I was worried about the possibility they might have a baby. (Come to think about it, the third rail – oh, I mean, the “third option”–perhaps is the illegitimately conceived child of the two?) Paternity tests anyone?

I believe I wrote about it a month or two ago–Google did a 180 turn on net neutrality and does not see a need for the levels of regulation it once thought. Having the market work things out relative to net neutrality was in the interests of Motherhood, Apple Pie and Chevrolet (the latter owned by our government). Wow, was I shocked seeing Google wrapping themselves in the American Flag and shouting like Mel Gibson in Braveheart … “Freedom!”

The China flag thing did not work out so well for Google, but if things keep trending the way they are in this country, Google just might have to dust off that Chinese Flag!

As you know, I am a pseudo-intellectual by my own admission (no one else’s admission, of course) and self-proclaimed fiber bigot. I stopped reading the Wall Street Journal and have embraced the more extensive capacity and challenge of the Financial Times (known as the “FT” for us intellectuals.) I’m global, sophisticated and have a penchant and thirst to learn even more about the superior economies and programs of countries outside of the United States that President Obama has embraced so graciously on your behalf. Not on my behalf, because I am an intellectual. You could not possibly understand what I and President Obama can extrapolate on such matters …

In reading the FT recently, you are not going to believe the pickle Google is in over in Europe. It’s like I am psychic or something!

The European commission out of Brussels (love their sprouts) has made allegations and an informal anti-trust inquiry over the bias of “Google Search.” At odds with the Commission, like Google’s argument before the 180 flip on net neutrality, is whether or not Google gives preferential treatment in search results to its own services! Imagine the “Don’t be evil” people doing such a thing!

Meanwhile, in Germany the governments “cartel office” is urging our friends inside the Beltway to investigate complaints made in Germany by various newspaper and magazine publishers to scrutinize Google USA. I figure if somehow there is tax money in it, our Federal government will pursue the allegations.

Has the horse left the barn on Google?

As Frank Pasquale, a professor at Seton Hall law school frames things: “After regulating the ’pipes’ of the internet with net neutrality, we need to look at the next part of the bottleneck, and that means search.”

Big Brother anyone?

I have no conclusion to offer you. This will be something to watch. But I do leave you with one thought: Did the smart people at Google outsmart themselves by getting involved in the net neutrality issue in the first place?

As I recently wrote in my “Third Rail” blog on the Julius’ “Third Option” for net neutrality – Jules will get hammered in the Courts or cut a deal behind closed doors with the big cable and Bell companies to save face on net neutrality with Ma Bell et al coming out on top.

You heard it here first…

PS: Jules, what is with the behind-closed-doors negotiations with the Bells and Cable Companies? Didn’t you say something about leading a transparent FCC?

I haven’t noticed any dark SUV’s parked outside the office or my home, but what I have been reading today is scary. Maybe I am becoming a national treasure and don’t even know it—maybe I am the next Jimmy Hoffa!

If you are not a regular reader to this blog (subscription price is $500/year*), I can’t go back over years of blogs pertaining to the FCC, forbearance, CA1996, ILECs winning in court, FCC ignoring Congress and losing, etc.–you will just have to trust me on this one.

I saw a headline that almost caused me to need a pair of Depends. The headline said: “Congressmen Tell FCC to Stop Doing Its Job.” Holy Cats! I started reading and saw that it is two Congressmen they are talking about–one Democrat and one Republican! Holy crap!

Excerpts from the article in the Ground Report:

On Friday, Congressmen Gene Green [D-TX] and Fred Upton [R-MI] introduced a concurrent resolution that “directs the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to wait for Congress to enact a law prior to issuing rules, regulations, or orders concerning additional regulation of broadband Internet service.”

“If the FCC continues its pursuit of reclassification, the certain result will be lengthy court battles that will reduce, or even halt, capital investments and effectively cease the improvement and expansion of access to the unserved and underserved areas of the country,” Rep. Green said.

The resolution, which Green says “reinforces the powers that are reserved for Congress under the Constitution,” is unlikely to pass the House. Even if the concurrent resolution did pass, it would not carry the weight of the law or require President Obama to sign it.

Now where have you heard this before? Is Congress reading my blog? Am I becoming a National Treasure? Will I get a late night TV show starring as a call-in psychic?

Or, will all of a sudden some black SUV’s start appearing? “Papers please, Mr. Rusin.”

*If you have not paid your $500.00 annual subscription fee, please send me a check; make it out to “Can America Sustain Herself”; or, “CASH” for short. The bank prefers CASH because of the subscription volume. What the hell, if Senators and members of Congress don’t have to report apartment rental income, offshore income or some kickback loan influence to their spouses company, then what’s wrong with me getting some scratch for this humble blog of mine on the side?

So what do I read? A letter dated July 21st to the FCC; Re: In the Matter of Special Access for Price Cap Local Exchange Carriers WC Docket no. 05-25.

The following is an excerpt by image from the letter:

Any idea what the data rate of a DS1 is? At full duplex it’s 1.54 Mbps.

Any idea what the data rate of a DS 3 is? At full duplex it is 44.736 Mbps.

You don’t have to be a telecom genius to realize we are living in a gigabit world with table stakes starting at 100 Mbps. Within 5-years, perhaps 10 gigabits!  Silicon chip manufacturers have already announced 100 gigabit chips?

Jimmy–as much as I like your assets, what the hell are you doing? As I have pondered in my past blogs, you should want what America needs: the death of copper-based transport such as DS1 and DS3.  Continuing the insanity only puts more cash into the ILECs pockets? Step up, Level 3–take on “legacy special access” with your own superior offerings!  Asking for more FCC legacy porridge is not a good idea in my opinion  You have a great opportunity to squander away–don’t do it!

In the FCC letter second paragraph–I am not a lawyer (nor would I ever become one given my moral bearings), but why are you telling the FCC that the ILECs have some monopolistic hold on you?   First, with your assets, you should be keeping the ILEC CEO’s awake at night. Secondly, my friend,Chairman Julius of the FCC–what’s he going to do?   Nothing.  He has no enforcement capabilities.  Commercial contracts were decided years ago.

(Jim, between me and you, I think Jules has stopped reading my blog – he was coming along well for awhile, but then he fell off the wagon and onto this “third option” jargon that will be ruled dead by a court within a year or two.) Jules, come back to this blog–just follow the light…keep walking towards the light…

If what you say is true in paragraph 2 above, I would get over to the Department of Commerce and/or the Department of Justice. We allegedly have laws against monopolistic or market leverage dominance. What you should be looking for, if what you say is true, is facility separation placing special access and last mile components of the ILEC’s networks into a separate highly regulated entity where traditional regulatory rates-of-return apply. The ILECs could simply spin the separated assets out to shareholders as a separate company. I would think this would be a good thing for anyone that owns serious metropolitan fiber infrastructure. Imagine offering a 100 Mbps megabits to an enterprise at a regulated DS3 rate of 45 Mbps–you would have a competitive advantage and the fiber infrastructure asset-light CLECs living off of legacy special access and copper loops would beat a path to your door.

As you take away more of the special access and last mile highly regulated copper business, the costs get worse for the ILEC spin-off–not better. Of course, this assumes no one goes nuts competing on price but delivering more bang for the bandwidth buck. And think about this, eventually the highly regulated spun-out legacy company will ask the FCC for permission to build last mile fiber or die! And, like in the United Kingdom, it should be granted–but remain highly regulated, equal access, open access to all and with no volume contract designs.

I like the recent Level 3 focus on penetrating local metropolitan markets.  It’s leverage. But I think asking for more legacy ILEC product rights is not the correct strategy.  You should want what America needs: fiber optic access.

Assuming the mid-term elections are going to bring “change” to the Beltway, perhaps a window of opportunity is opening!

Go ahead, make some noise at the DOJ, Commerce and Congress.  Make it an early 2012 election issue. If I know lawyers like I know lawyers (and with which Congress is loaded) and if the 2010 elections becomes upsetting to both parties as I believe, you just might want to consider leading an effort to–once and for all–addressing America’s commercial/consumer dietary need for fiber in a compromise legislation breaking up Ma Bell further while declaring a bipartisan victory for all in America!   If Jim or maybe even Julius, were to lead this, either could end up on a box of Wheaties!  The first non-sports super heroes!

Let’s forget the fat kid fight for a fiber diet against fast food chains which is going on inside the beltway today.  Jim–you and Jules can lead the way!  Think about it!

To those that are new, read some of my past postings and you’ll see my Pro-America stance when it comes to making any decisions relative to US Telecommunications networks or Telecommunications Policy.

By my own admission, I am a fiber bigot and favor less–not more–regulation from the government in matters that concern telecommunications. I am not a “do as I say, not as I do” type of person.

Today, just for fun, I want to profile a company after reading a recent letter filed with the FCC by this company.

Can you guess who this company is?

• Owns over 54,000 intercity fiber route miles

• Owns over 27,000 metropolitan fiber route miles

• Has over 8,000 buildings “on-net”

• Has a presence in over 125 metropolitan markets.

• Over 100,000 enterprise “near net” buildings are less than 500 feet from their metropolitan fiber backbone (That’s about, on average a $5,000 lateral build per Enterprise

• Services over 300 Fortune 500 Companies

• Services thousands of mid-market enterprises

• Services 13 of the top 16 US-based cable companies

• Services 19 of the top 20 telecom carriers

• Services 5 of the top 5 wireless carriers – that’s close to 100% of the market in America.

• Services more than 35 Federal Agencies

• 90% of their business generates from the United States, 10% from Europe

Have you guessed?

Is it TW Telecom? Cogent? AboveNet? Global Crossing? Or, Level 3?

Answer: Level 3

Pretty impressive, you have to admit.  Especially 100,000 enterprises less than 500 feet from their back bone. Imagine 1000 feet? 1500 feet? At least at AFS, we have found stronger margins and double digit growth in Enterprise, more loyalty and less churn.

Now, the rub with Level 3 has always been their debt load.  But give credit where it is due–they manage their debt load well and creatively. Actually, the next big chunk of coming-due debt of significant relevance is $2.9 billion in 2014. If history is any indicator of past performance, this too shall be refinanced by the time it is due. So all you “Level 3 is going to get crushed by their debt” experts, I say more than likely not, just managed out into the future.

As I have written before, call CEO Jim Crowe whatever you want–mad genius, expert financier or just plain lucky–but Jim was smart enough to load up with debt on Day 1 of Level 3 launch which helped Level 3 avoid what 1200+ telecom companies did not avoid over the past ten years:  Bankruptcy.

That aside, personally, in my opinion, I like to refer to Jim as the “Bus Driver.”  This is the result of a few years back when Level 3 threw Sunit, their CFO, under the proverbial bus when integration after a wild M&A spree was not coming together quite well. I never liked this move given Sunit had saved Level 3’s butt on more than one occasion working his financial magic. In addition, I think after throwing him under the bus, it soon proved hard and difficult to find, hire and retain a new CFO given what had happened to Sunit even though there were well over 1200 CFO’s probably looking for work!

One would think, with that with the profile above, this company should be a crazy growth engine, even if focused upon the basic data, transport and IP. Their asset position is compelling and for all intent and purpose, the networks are sunken costs and we should be experiencing explosive growth and in my opinion, some fine whining from CLECs being crushed by Level 3.

Check in on Thursday for Part 2 of Dave’s “Stop the Dancing” post…

That is what I have after one year–perspective.

What you do for a living should not be want defines you as a person. If it does, or you allow it to, you are cheating yourself, your family, quality of life and humanity. You are more important and meaningful than a job. The power you were given by God is greater than any job you can hold on earth with the exception of the work He has for you, here on earth.

What kind of person are you really? Do you often find yourself hiding behind the term “it’s just business?” when you really know that you have cheated another, placed greed over moral truth or conducted yourself in some cowardly manner to satisfy selfishness?

Are you a good role model to others? Do you walk the talk? Do you inspire? Do you encourage others to be a better person by example? Do you honestly care? Can you give up your right to make the other person wrong? Are you self-less? Are you the same person away from home as you are at home?

Do you get angry when someone cheats you or another? And is that anger not aimed at the injustice, but at the fact the person (or persons) who cheated another has brought detriment to their soul?

Perspective. It’s been a year and I have learned a lot in hindsight, for He has made me a better person.  A better CEO, father, husband, brother and neighbor.

Shawn Olson passed away one year ago today, in an abrupt, unforeseen accident. He was young, and loved and cherished every moment he had with his wife and son. He was an employee, colleague and friend–a friend to our company as well as to me. He was a pillar, at least to me, from the great state of Minnesota.

I have thought of Shawn throughout the year–it’s been a year already. Life is precious and time can only be spent once.

A few months before Shawn’s accident, Shawn had another offer from a company to change jobs. The job had slightly better money but required a lot of travel. Shawn discussed openly and honestly with his manager, Rich Coyle–and subsequently me–the decision he was wrestling with. The advice we provided had nothing to do with matching a salary offer or a job. Our advice was directed to growing teen son who needed a dad to stay local and spend time with him. No amount of money will ever allow his growing up to repeat itself.

Shawn pondered the advice and elected to stay with AFS.

Did God intervene? Just a few short weeks later, Shawn passed from this earth while on a family vacation. Sure Shawn’s time was shortened, but those few weeks–no one can put a price upon them.

In time, our losses heal, and our memories grow fond of how Shawn managed to lead life by example and with a great heart.

God called him home, a year ago today.

Perspective.

Thank you Shawn.