Don't speak before you're spoken to - EEC - Company Business and Marketing

CommunicationsWeek International, Oct 23, 2000 by David Molony

More and more companies are getting global networks up and running without anybody noticing. Adevla, Commtag and Ebcon are among the names of the new networking companies few people have heard about.

While it is possible to arrange a meeting with the people who have set up the companies and have worked out business plans, nobody seems to know what these companies are going to do.

"I could tell you, but Jim [his technical director] would kill me," said Gavin Young, vice president of engineering at Adevia Ltd. At least Adevia is letting on it will be doing something with digital subscriber line technology. But you can do different things with DSL, and Adevia has not said what its approach will be.

But there are some things these companies do have in common. Almost invariably each is "doing something nobody else has done before."

Some companies appear out of nowhere with global networks already in place, a checklist of value-added services which other operators have been working for years to develop, and a reference list of multinational customers too.

EEC is like that. Last month there were whispers in the industry of a new global service provider called ECC or EBC. Nobody was quite sure even of the name, let alone its business model. But EEC Holdings launched with broadband network and a satellite overlay reaching from Alexandria, Virginia, to Los Angeles and Honolulu.

One reason for the lack of publicity may be that it is relatively cheap to do global networks--EEC's cost [pound]25 million--so there's little to stir the market.

According to John Summers, EEC's head of sales and marketing for Europe, and one of the founders of the company, keeping a low profile is important to credibility. "Talk about It when you have done it," he said.