New York — According to the CEO of a major value-added network (VAN) provider, two recent severed connections by competitors have put a large number of retail and wholesale customers at risk.

Internet Commerce Corp., headquartered here, raised an alarm in February to news organizations about its partnership with GXS, a division of General Electric, and Sterling Commerce, owned by SBC Communications, Inc.

According to ICC CEO Michael Cassidy, GXS and Sterling severed their interconnection with Internet Commerce Corp. without adequate explanation.

"For the last 15 years, over 40,000 electronic data interchange customers ... have relied on the fact that an open EDI agreement kept interconnections open regardless of their service company," Cassidy said.

The expectations are exactly like those of a telephone call, he said.

"If you call out, various networks handle your call but you expect to be connected quickly," he said.

Jason Hillery, a Sterling spokesman, wouldn't add to the company's announcement that it would terminate the interconnection effective March 9.

GXS spokesman Jim Fowler said that his company's disconnection occurred on September 30, 2001.

"We make third party interconnects when the business reasons are there. In this case they were no longer there," Fowler said.

The controversy doesn't surprise market analyst Frank Kenney of Gartner.

"ICC is providing services in a market in which the big VAN's are now flexing their muscles. My actionable advice to customers is to look at your vendor to see what interconnection agreements and value added services they have," Kenney said.

Huge wholesale and retail companies found that EDI worked, although it was expensive to deploy and maintain, Kenney says. With the Internet not bringing down costs as it was hoped, EDI is still strong and is now a bigger part of GXS's and Sterling's plans.

"It's true — the big VAN's are aggressively marketing prices and pursuing share. They have made a conscious decision to leverage what they have in networks," Kenney said.