NEWS BRIEFS
Posted: 02/2000
NEWS BRIEFS?
* EqualNet Corp., San Antonio, announced its common stock was pulled off the
Nasdaq Stock Market as a result of not having met its maintenance listing requirement of
$1 per share minimum bid price. EqualNet’s common stock now is traded on the Over the
Counter market.
EqualNet filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September 1998 and successfully consummated its
plan of reorganization in June 1999. Although the company intends on becoming a
multi-level marketer (MLM), and pushed the decision by acquiring Miami-based MLM Intelesis
Group Inc. in 1999, current EqualNet agents say the company isn’t billing end users or
paying agents in a timely fashion, and often not at all.
The company claims to have had difficulty in converting to customer management and
information systems with billing capabilities during the third quarter of fiscal year 1998
through the fourth quarter of fiscal year 1999. Although the company believes its new
system has improved rating speed and billing accuracy, EqualNet agents claim not to have
seen a change.
Billing and commissions paid remain spotty, if either happen at all. "They haven’t
paid at all for the past 90 days," says Agent Neil Horowitz, who is owed just under
$3,000 by EqualNet. "I’ve tried to speak with the COO, the president, the COO’s
assistant, and no one’s returned or acknowledged my calls."
In speaking with EqualNet COO Bill Rhodes Dec. 29, he agrees payments have been spotty
due to cash shortages and technical difficulties, but he remains optimistic. "My
feeling is whether it’s 30 [days] or 45 days, we’re not far away from being able to fix
everything and make it totally right," Rhodes says. "We fully intend for
everybody to get any money owed. It is not an ideal situation and I don’t want to pretend
it is."
* On the heels of a failed merger in September, which set the executive team of ATCALL
Inc. (www.atcall.com) into a tailspin, the company
filed Dec. 16 for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern
District of Virginia, in Alexandria. The company presented a restructuring to the trustee
and the creditors, according to Jason Schnur, vice president of subscriber services.
"We sat down and thought that the best thing for our customers, be they agents,
end users or employees, was to file for the Chapter 11 protection from creditors while we
put together the restructuring plan and got some short-term and long-term financing set
up," says Schnur.
How strong the plan is and how much weight it bears with the trustee and the company’s
creditors will determine ATCALL’s future, says an optimistic Schnur.
"If a Chapter 11 can be a good thing for a company, things are looking like we
planned them, at least in the first few days of this challenge we’re under right now. It’s
unfortunate, but the Chapter 11 was really done, truthfully, to protect in this order, end
users and agents, which are our customers, and employees of the company."
The company let its agents know of the Chapter 11 bankruptcy via telephone and via
e-mail and mail directly after filing.
* After its parent company IXC Communi-cations Inc. merged late last year
with Cincinnati Bell Telephone to form Broadwing Communications (www.broadwing.com), Eclipse Telecommunications is
bringing its agent program and will expand it under the Broad-wing name.
"[There will be] a significant increase in focus on the agent program," says
David Rosenfeld, Broadwing’s vice president of alternate channel. "It has been
decided that it will become an emphasis and a major part of our business and business
growth for the future."
Broadwing is building a web-based network to assist in managing its agent program. The
company currently is beta testing an online order entry system for agents, which will
include customer billing, ANI and 800 information, account care, electronic commission
statements, dedicated status information and more. Rosenfeld says the company plans to put
"major emphasis" on cutting the lead-time of its provisioning system.
"We think all these technologies, with the infrastructure and assistance of
Cincinnati Bell, coupled with that of the network, just strengthen the program,"
Rosenfeld says.
* In conjunction with PHONE+ and Intele-Card News magazines, The
Independent Agent Network Inc. (IAN) (www.top25ld.com)
debuted Jan. 3 a website exclusively for agents. Called www.RATESforAGENTS.com, the site
features rates, products and agent programs telecommunications carriers and enhanced
services providers offer. For up-to-date agent news from PHONE+, agents still can log on
to the Telecom Agents Group (TAG) website at www.telecomagentsgroup.com.
* Network Plus Inc. (www.nwp.com), an ICP with
facilities in the northeastern and southeastern United States, announced in December that
its local service is being offered to agents through its wholesale division. The package
includes local, long distance and high-speed data services, such as digital subscriber
line (DSL) service.
The services are priced at a discount off local services offered by ILECs, according to
Network Plus.
"Because of the tremendous success of our business voice and data bundled package
in our retail channels, we did not want to wait any longer to unveil this plan to our
agents," said Robert Hale Jr., president and CEO of Network Plus. Hale says the
company’s customer base has grown 15 percent since the package was introduced last summer.
Hale also says the recent acquisition of New York-based ISP InfoHouse Inc. enables the
company’s agents to offer advanced Internet features, such as web hosting and collocation
sales.
Paul Marshall, vice president of wholesale services for Network Plus, applauded
the deal. "This business plan is the answer our agents have been looking for,"
he says. "We have been hearing the phrase ‘one-stop shop’ for some time. Now Network
Plus is poised to deliver in the Northeast, with the Southeast to follow at the beginning
of 2000."
