MCI Names AT&T Veteran President, COO

The company has been without a COO since Ronald Beaumont departed following WorldCom's bankruptcy filing in July 2002.

Roscitt is the former chairman and CEO of Minneapolis, Minn.-based ADC, a network and equipment service provider to communications providers. Prior to joining ADC in 2001, Roscitt was with AT&T for 28 years, rising to the positions of president of AT&T Business Services and CEO of AT&T Solutions.

With his long history at AT&T, the subject of AT&T's battle against MCI concerning alleged call rerouting charges--in which AT&T claims that it and other service providers had to pay the charges as MCI traffic re-entered the United States from Canada--was broached on a call with the press this afternoon.

In response, Roscitt said he felt confident that MCI is doing everything it can to address the issue.

"I've met with the board, I've met with the creditor's committee and I've met with [Chairman and CEO Michael Capellas'] team, and feel that everyone is being very straightforward and are committed to getting to the bottom of this to find out what is going on," Roscitt said.

Capellas echoed what he has said in the past regarding the alleged rerouting claims--that an internal audit is leaving no stone unturned.

"We also have a top-notch outside law firm that we feel is handling this correctly," Capellas said.

Roscitt is member of the board of the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), a U.S. nonprofit trade association representing the communications and IT industries, and is also a member of the Associates Committee of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA).