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The failure of the USTA-TIA show SUPERCOMM may finally persuade the Bells to fire Walt McCormick, which they have been discussing at least since 2006. The latest debacle is cancelling SUPERCOMM just three months before, after much of the industry made plans and some have bought non-refundable tickets. No surprise they are hopping mad. The SUPERCOMM name will pass on to the private companies, Reed Exhibitions and E.J. Krause. They've moved the dates to Oct. 21-22 in the hope of selling a viable number of booths.

SUPERCOMM had been the crucial support for USTA and TIA and extraordinarily profitable. In 2006, McCormick destroyed it in hopes of making more from his TelecomNext show, which flopped miserably. They lost more than half the exhibitors and attendees from the prior year and were stood up at the last minute by the AT&T CEO keynoter. He twice insulted the Chairman of the FCC in public to no useful purpose.

Since that show, the Bells who control Walt's $1.5M paycheck have been talking about replacing him. In 2009, a partisan Republican who refuses to accept the principles of the new administration has few supporters.

Few reporters will miss Walt, and not just because he was generally unavailable for questions and said little of substance if you could catch him.  He attacked Jim Granelli of the LA Times because Granelli broke an important story on how Bill Daley and USTA were pressuring the manufacturers for lobbying money. Granelli's job was threatened because he did good reporting. As a practical matter, the Bells have been ignoring USTA and doing their own lobbying. The Bells are working many other angles to get influence with the Dems, (CETF, Hollis, Clyburn at the DNC, CWA, etc.) because USTA is not effective.