No price war from post-bankruptcy wholesalers

Though median IP transport prices in the U.S. and Western Europe dropped 10% to 20% in the second quarter of 2003 and may continue to drop, post-bankrupt carriers aren’t to blame for the price war, said research firm TeleGeography. "There is little evidence that carriers re-entering the market after bankruptcy are using reduced debt levels to price services more aggressively than their competitors," said TeleGeography’s senior research analyst Rob Schult. "The cheapest rates tend to originate from suppliers with low network utilization. Their attempts to gain market share and to get customer traffic onto the network frequently result in prices that are at or below marginal cost."