Upon hearing that MCI (Nasdaq:MCIP) shareholders had questioned the wisdom of accepting a $6.64 billion offer from Verizon (NYSE:VZ) rather than an initial $8 million bid from Qwest (NYSE:Q), it seems that Qwest executives decided to up their ante and submit a revised $8 million offer with more guarantees and upfront money.  The idea is to offer more cash up front and also protect MCI if Qwest shares drop by as much as 10% before the deal closes. 

The reason that some MCI execs initially were more inclined to accept the Verizon bid (even though it came in lower than Qwest's) was the debt that Qwest is currently burdened with ($17 billion).  The reality is that while Qwest is the incumbent in 14 Western and Midwestern states, it faces a lot of competition for HSI (High Speed Internet) and cable TV services.  The company incurred more debt when building its state-of-the-art national fiber optic network. 

This latest offer will get the full consideration from the MCI board, but predicting its reaction is difficult, considering the public manner in which the bid was made and the turbulence of some of the shareholders.  It could very well mean that MCI will leverage this latest Qwest bid to get more money from Verizon.  But the million dollar question is how much more MCI will be able to fetch from Verizon - some folks in Wall Street are guessing that increase will not be very significant (less than $0.50 per Verizon share).