I It wasn't too many years ago when one of our homegrown Arkansas boys stumbled into the world of telecommunications and helped create a technology that is fast becoming the preferred means of receiving television signals bouncing around in space.  With the help of retired NASA scientists, he managed to cobble together a product that was yet to be discovered, but which now adorns so many homes across the country:  The pizza sized satellite dish.  But the dish was just a detail in his grand plan to capture a market yet untapped, and his chances of success were nearly certain due to his ownership of some coveted property just outside the Earth's atmosphere that he had acquired from the Federal Communications Commission, known as the 110 Orbital Slot.

        At that time, only one other "person" had a similar ownership capable of broadcasting to the entire country without the need for the use of old satellite dishes that often dwarfed the homes they served.  Direct TV, a subsidiary of GM, was greasing its monopoly over the newly emerging technology and was running away with customers defecting from other companies who did not own the necessary frequencies to compete.  Direct TV, you see, had a lot of money and was able to launch its satellite before our homegrown boy could obtain the necessary millions to finance such a venture.  But he persisted, and signed off on a deal with Telecommunications, Inc. (TCI), whereby in exchange for millions of dollars and an interest in the business, TCI would pay for and launch a satellite to provide television signals to Earth from the coveted 110 Orbital Slot.

Unfortunately for our homegrown boy, the game being played at such levels was getting hairy, and the competition was fierce.  Before the ink could dry on his deal with TCI, telecommunications moguls such as Rupert Murdoch and Bernie Ebbers were playing their cards behind the scenes in their standard ordinary kick-ass-and-take-names-later method of doing business.  Realizing the value of the 110 Orbital Slot, gossip has it that Bernie Ebbers approached MCI's CEO, Bert Roberts, and promised to back MCI's effort to hijack the 110 Orbital Slot from our homegrown boy. 

Soon thereafter, MCI's Bert Roberts scheduled a trip to Geneva, Switzerland, the site of a telecommunications world conference that was featuring as its guest the Chairman of the FCC, Reid Hunt.  (Hunt, who was appointed chairman of the FCC during the Clinton administration, and Bert Roberts were both old friends and classmates of Vice President Gore).  It was no coincidence when old friends Bert Roberts and Reid Hunt bumped into one another in Geneva.  Bert Roberts told FCC Chairman Hunt that MCI would pay a really big price for the 110 Orbital Slot, if the FCC could figure out a way to get the slot away from our homegrown boy, and put the slot up for public auction. 

At that time, the FCC was looking for ways to spill more money into its public coffers, and it just so happened that our homegrown boy was due for approval of his application for an extension to launch a satellite into his 110 Orbital Slot, a slot Hunt had publicly dubbed a "cash cow".  Such extension requests were historically given the rubber stamp, but after Chairman Hunt returned from Geneva he voted to deny our homegrown boy's extension, took the 110 Orbital Slot away from him, and auctioned it off to the winning bidder for $735 million.  And the winner was MCI!  Shortly after MCI's winning bid, MCI merged with Bernie Ebbers' WordCom, infusing MCI with sufficient assets (at least on paper) to close the deal on its successful auction bid for the 110 Orbital Slot.  MCI then took the 110 Orbital Slot and entered into a deal to sell it to Primestar, a cable company and competitor of the satellite television industry, for a whopping $1.1 billion.  

I drafted our homegrown boy's lawsuit against MCI/WorlCom, and sought to recover the fair market value of the 110 Orbital Slot ($735 million and rising), that was ripped out of my client's fingers.  It wasn't long after his lawsuit was dismissed (probably because no one believed his bizarre story), that our homegrown boy died, never realizing his dream of fame and fortune.      

So, I was abundantly pleased to see that Bernie Ebbers got caught in the tide of his misdeeds and is headed for a life behind bars.  As they say, what goes around comes around.  I just wanted to echo the knowing laugh coming from the grave of our homegrown boy and tell you for him, "I told you so." 

Rest in peace, Dan Garner.  

By Robert Ginnaven
 
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