Despite early pressures, many of WorldCom's customers are simply holding steady. Many large companies have several providers and are now making sure those alternative networks can serve as ample backup in a worst-case scenario. "We're going to monitor the situation, but we feel confident that we have multiple providers," said Dan Greenfield, a spokesman for EarthLink. The Internet service provider also buys network access from Sprint and Level 3 Communications, he said. Speakeasy, an ISP based in Seattle that recently signed a business DSL (digital subscriber line) deal with WorldCom, is similarly confident -- but is checking its options, too. The company has only a few customers using WorldCom, spokeswoman Kat Oak said. "We don't have a great concern," Oak said. "We're looking for ways to transition customers," just in case there is a problem, she added. The WorldCom layoffs were a bigger concern than the accounting issues for Troy Settle, president of Virginia-based ISP Pulaski Networks. He was about to sign a deal with WorldCom this week but says he's changed his mind and is looking for a new provider. "The fraud doesn't really bug me, as long as they can restructure financially," he said. "But 17,000 layoffs does disturb me." Those jobs might come from areas of the company needed to support his business, Settle said. And customers weren't exactly reassured by WorldCom sales staffers' promises that business will go on as usual. Peyerl said he'd been told "this was just a minor blip, and that everything's fine." He's not ready to take that at face value. "Of course they're not going to tell you that there's looting and burning in the hallways," he said. Analysts said it is the world's largest companies -- drawn to WorldCom for its international networks -- that are likely to be most affected. WorldCom has been drawing refugees from KPNQwest, the bankrupt Qwest joint venture, for example. WorldCom chief executive John Sidgmore and other senior executives have spent much of their time in recent months flying around the world trying to reassure their largest customers of WorldCom's continued viability. Just a few weeks ago, Sidgmore said he hadn't lost a single one of his top 100 customers. Tuesday's news, however, may well tip many of those customers over the edge, said Kate Gerwig, an analyst at Current Analysis. "My guess is that if they don't have (competing) bids already, they're getting them now." And analysts warn that it's likely to get worse for WorldCom and its customers before it gets better. "There are more shoes to drop," said Scott Cleland, chief executive of The Precursor Group and a longtime telecommunications analyst. Financial misrepresentation on this scale is unlikely to have begun out of the blue in 2001, Cleland said. It's likely that WorldCom may find similar issues in previous years. "I don't think they've gone back that far" yet, he said.
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