Former WorldCom Chief Bernard Ebbers Has Died. How the WorldCom Con Helped Huawei

The death of former WorldCom chief Bernie Ebbers at 78 brings back memories of the “broadbandit” era of telecoms around the turn of the century, when a bubble burst that inflicted huge damage on the industry and its investors, contributing to the rise to pre-eminence of China's Huawei today. Ebbers was sentenced to 25 years in jail in 2005, but was released in Dec 2019 on compassionate grounds to spend his final weeks with his family. He was convicted for orchestrating an $11 billion accounting fraud at WorldCom that led to the biggest bankruptcy in US history at the time. Its apparent success helped fuel big investments in fibre-optic networks, which fell flat as its rivals overstretched themselves and the dotcom bust brought a chill to the sector. There was a knock-on effect on the providers of equipment to the industry. So we are down to Huawei, Nokia and Ericsson as the last three telecoms equipment players standing.