I do not believe I have anything to hide, I believe that no one will conclude that I engaged in any criminal or fraudulent conduct.

We very much regret that our merger with Sprint was not allowed to proceed,

I just want you to know you aren’t going to church with a crook.

We accelerated our capital spending in the fourth quarter, particularly in international and next-generation network deployment, which should not only sustain future revenue growth but also drive significant cost reductions across all communications services.

I want you to know you aren’t going to church with a crook.

No one will find me to have knowingly committed fraud.

It is very clear from our financial performance that our employees remained focused on delivering results. Our core management and employee strength — which has predominantly come from successful mergers over the years — continues...

The strength in our third-quarter financial results is cause for excitement. I’m particularly pleased that we continue to demonstrate impressive growth at the same time we are engaged in important merger discussions.

The benefits of this merger are compelling for the stockholders of both MCI and WorldCom — powerful synergies and ownership in the best performing communications stock over the past decade. This merger is about growth...

the chairman told us he would keep an open mind.

WorldCom condemns unauthorized carrier switches, and we cooperated fully with the FCC’s review, … The incidents highlighted by the FCC were perpetrated by a few sales employees, who have since been terminated.

I guess the one question I will not get today is: When are you going to do anything about cellular?

Our investments in data, Internet and international have been particularly timely and have positioned the company to post industry-leading incremental revenue gains.

We have intensified our focus on what we do best — provide core communications services, … Including today’s announcement with EDS, over the past year we have shed virtually all of our non-communications services businesses.

We are exploring opportunities to separate portions of our switched voice operations into separate companies or tracking stocks,

[The] ridiculousness … because these individuals are first offenders who are unlikely to commit a crime again.

Our communications services revenue growth is being driven by continued strong top-line performance in data, Internet and international — three of the fastest growing and most profitable areas within communications services.

The merger will greatly expand our total number of local networks and advance our entrance into more secondary cities by as much as two years,

Our core strengths are very complementary.

The almost four full quarters of approval process were put to good use in planning the integration of our operations by a team experienced in integrating merged companies.

With this merger, WorldCom accelerates by 12-to-18 months our ability to provide world-class managed Web and application hosting services — one of the highest growth markets in the industry,

We have now hit the ground running with new products and we will soon be in full stride as one company.

Opposition to this merger just adds to the list of (Federal Communications Commission Chairman William) Kennard-Klein policies that ultimately will reduce innovation and choice and raise the cost of telephone services for residential customers, particularly...