I joined competitive telecommunications in 1992. That was 16 years ago. Wow.
Back then, the average age of people within competitive telecom was low. Industry veterans largely worked at AT&T or the RBOCs. MCI and Sprint were still relatively new. Competitive Access Providers or CAPS were brand new and the expression CLEC was not yet invented.
The Internet? In the early 1990s, most people in telecom had very little idea what the Internet was. Using email in general was relatively new. Having an AOL account was considered cutting edge and perhaps a bit risqué. Within a few short years, the Internet was driving much of the growth that CAPS were enjoying-though it took a while for the telecom crowd to understand this.
Fast forward to 1995, a year in which MFS Communications was growing quite rapidly. Specifically, MFS was selling a bunch of DS1s, much of which were the result of the budding Internet. Keep this in mind as you read this series as most MFS senior executives circa 1995 did not know what the Internet was.
I was working around the clock at MFS. I had been focused on the expansion of MFS’ fiber network into new geographies and was about to transition to leading MFS’ charge into competitive local switched services. It was about this time that I received an invitation to attend an MFS senior executive meeting. The meeting was called by MFS’ CEO Jim Crowe and included about 25 of the senior-most executives at MFS. I barely made the invitee cut and, given I was new to the senior exec crowd, was anxious for the meeting to take place.
The topic of the meeting: “The Internet“. I know it is hard to imagine, but meeting on this topic made absolutely no sense. Most of the exec team hadn’t heard of the Internet or, if they did, had no idea what the topic had to do with our business. If Jim Crowe called us together to discuss the mating habits of baboons, it wouldn’t have seemed any less relevant.
Tomorrow I will tell you about the meeting.
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Hey Dan-
Most people generally don’t really know where the Internet “came from”! Whenever this type of topic is raised I recommend the book “Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins Of The Internet” (ISBN: 978-0684832678) to whomever will listen. It’s a great book that chronicles the early history of the Internet from ARPA to BBN to the final privatization hand offs. I’ll be interested to hear what was said in the meeting you reference from way back! I remember seeing Mosiac for the first time and being downright amazed at the possibilities.