How has the integration of MCI gone? Verizon Business has most of the former MCI operations, combined with Verizon business operations. We've just finished our first year of being in business and feel we had a very good first year under [our] belt. Integration has gone extremely well. One goal we had a year ago was to hit the enterprise market globally very quickly, achieving the switch to the Verizon business brand -- and that has gone quite well. We're outperforming and gaining share on the other business carriers. We're very pleased with where we are at the end of the first year.
Speaking of competition, including foreign carriers, what makes Verizon special? We've very well positioned with the best global network, and have a strong U.S. network, coming from MCI and previously UUNET, which has really positioned us all over the globe. We have 7,000 of our 34,000 workers overseas, which gives us unsurpassed capabilities. Most of our key customer base is truly global now. Major financial companies and manufacturers are looking for providers who offer service all over the globe. We didn't shed any network assets. The people and the culture we had with MCI are being very quick and responsive. The former MCI retained a lot of share during the time they were potentially going bankrupt, and that's a real testament to the kinds of skill sets that were brought in. And I think we've built on those. Also, we were a first mover to IP. Businesses are moving more and more to Internet Protocol for their networking and for VoIP for their networking, so that product set stands us out.
What's your reaction to the big AT&T merger with BellSouth and especially the well-publicized concessions AT&T made to get FCC approval? Candidly, we at Verizon Business don't pay a lot of attention to it. We've very focused on our product portfolio. Those conditions are AT&T conditions and not ours, so there's nothing constraining us at all. If anything, it might create some opportunity for us as far as speed in the marketplace because we're not going through another integration right now while they are. We don't spend much time worrying what BellSouth coming on board does. We're more worried about serving our customers and getting their business.
Do you see a price war brewing, or possibly a different effect, with AT&T growing in size and increased competition from foreign carriers? We're focused on providing value to our customers. If anything, there's more logic put back in the industry with mergers. There used be a whole host of people going after the business, and it's really a smaller group now. We're showing customers we can add value and reliability. For example, two weeks ago, we dealt with the implications of the Taiwan earthquake. We have an undersea cable infrastructure that we share and some of those were damaged. We came out of that very well, because we had multiple routes into Asia. We were able to help some major institutions [that] had service problems re-route their traffic, and with some, we won new business as part of that process. We also continue to invest in the new undersea cable into China and are partners with the three major Chinese carriers, which puts us in a different position.
What is top of mind for your big business customer? Top of mind with all of them is reliability, making sure that the network serving them works. One example is [a major automaker] with plants all around the world. We're their major data network supplier. I was recently out with them and they basically said to me, "If your network goes down, our plant goes down." They were paying us a compliment that we've done such a good job, with really no problems at all. This is serving them in multiple countries around the globe.