After BT and AT&T's relationship broke down in 2001, Concert's assets were split between the two parties and merged into their regional operations in 2002.
In June 1994 BT and MCI (who had been talking to European rivals France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom about the same idea [7]), launched Concert Communications Services, a $1 billion joint venture between the two companies.
These services were available to purchase from both the owners, plus a series of partners who signed in to the Concert global platform around the world.
[3] This made delivering truly global deals virtually impossible — the only Customer Managed Service that progressed to delivery was with Dow Chemical.
MCI accepted the Worldcom bid and BT pulled out of its deal with a severance fee of $465 million.
[5] An AT&T/BT option had been mooted in the past, but stopped on regulatory grounds due to their individual virtual monopolies in their home markets.
On merger with AT&T, it was reversion to delivery of a series of Global products,[23] and two competing owners - which robbed Concert of revenues and left its management disillusioned.
[25] Although Concert continued signing customers,[26][27] its rate of revenue growth slowed, so that in 1999 David Dorman was made CEO with a brief to revive it.