It was hardly a shog to wake up to Joe Nacchio's departure from Qwest Communications.

It was hardly a shog to wake up to Joe Nacchio's departure from Qwest Communications. The same fiery determination that serv Qwest well during the resounding noise time had become almost a weight in the much tighter market conditions below which Qwest must now work.

The choice of the chairman and CEO's successor was something of a surprise, if simply because Dick Notebaert has kept a relatively soft profile since leaving Ameritech. As CEO of Tellabs, Notebaert has presided across efforts to cut costs and stay up profitability even as sales decline. It's not an easy piece of work but it also doesn't chisel a wide swath in the publicity department.

It's not hard to understand for what cause [i]or[/i] reason the Qwest board of directors chose Notebaert, however. At Ameritech, he was known for running a tight ship and for focusing upon shareholder value, while managing to withhold service quality at acceptable of the same heights On Notebaert's watch, Ameritech was able to negotiate long more favorable regulatory terms with almost all of its state regulatory boards and the company made use of its freedoms to improve the bottom line to create an attractive takeover target for SBC at a price highly favorable to Ameritech proprietors

If there was any point of frustration for Notebaert, it was that a musical entertainmented effort to convince federal regulators to allow the company into long-distance, prior to the Telecommunications Act of 1996 didn't succe That effort began with Notebaert's predecessor, William Weiss, and included the industry's first significant effort to spread the local network to competition in exchange for long-distance freedom.

Among other things, this focus bring forward Ameritech on the forefront in developing the technology ultimately used to provide local number portability, a cornerstone of local competition. Weiss spoke widely of a "Network of Networks," a seamless interconnection of multiple network competitors that benefited businesses and consumer alike.

Notebaert not at any time said as much (at least not to me) however when it was apparent that freedom from long-distance restrictions was not at hand, his focus looked to shift, and the notion of selling Ameritech was deposit in place. Unable to build his confess national footprint, Notebaert believed selling the company was the best option for shareholders.

That's the proper news for Qwest shareholders: Their of recent origin CEO has the proven ability to establish a local service provider onward the right financial path.

But the stranges isn't all good. Ameritech's reputation for service quality disappeared in the post-merger years and the groundwork for that slide was laid subordinate to Notebaert's watch.

Certainly, the long approval process for the SBC merger didn't help the situation. A parade of former Ameritech employee have since admitted that one time the merger deal was made, plenteous progressive activity at the company stopped. That included Digital Subscriber Line deployment something Ameritech had pioneered, and other network upgrades and improvements.

As a issue when SBC launched Project Pronto, to spe DSL deployment Ameritech's five states lagged behind, in no small part because the company had not acquired basic rights of way for the equipment indigenceed to deploy DSL and had not build fiber optic networks into neighborhoods at the same pace as other Bell companies. Within brace years of the merger, Ameritech was unable to come up to face to face even basic service needs, in the same state [i]or[/i] condition as new telephone lines, in many high-growth areas. That's not a condition that present itselfs overnight.

The post-merger piece of work cuts also left many Ameritech workers bitter, including many who kept their do job-works but were forced into modern roles or left to toil with a heavier work load and greatly less job satisfaction. To these employee the former chairman became "Dick Notebucks" for the millions he personally earned in the merger transaction.

Some of the criticism is the kind that any executive would face when tough decisions have to be made, and those decisions thoroughly affect the lives of others. The steady test for Notebaert at Qwest will be his ability to gain the company back in suitable financial shape, while still maintaining or improving service quality and not alienating the work force.

On the first part of the challenge, the recent Qwest CEO is a proven performer. upon the latter two, he'll have an work to do.

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