SBC claims MCI not paying dues

Access charges unpaid, allegedly

By Tim Richardson • Get more from this author

Posted in Business, 14th August 2003 14:57 GMT

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Another day, another allegation against troubled MCI.

This time rival communications group SBC claims that it is being short-changed by MCI over the routing of long-distance calls.

Reuters reports that it has seen a letter sent earlier this week by SBC to MCI CEO Michael Capellas in which SBC explains how it has carried out a series of test calls last week.

"We have compelling evidence that the SBC Telephone Companies are not being paid appropriate terminating access charges for a substantial proportion of MCI's long distance traffic and that this scheme is ongoing," said the letter.

It’s turning into a bad week for MCI - aka WorldCom - which is trying desperately to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

A couple of day ago the FBI called on people to come forward if they had any information concerning similar allegations that MCI improperly rerouted long-distance calls in the US and Canada in order to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in access fees to other phone companies.

MCI has already dismissed the allegations of improperly rerouting calls as nothing but mischief-making on the part of its rivals.

It claims that an internal investigation has shown that it's done nothing wrong. ®