News Briefs March 2000

Posted: 03/2000

News Briefs

* GST Telecommunications Inc. (www.gstcorp.com)
has announced an indefeasible right of use (IRU) agreement with Worldwide Fiber Inc.
(www.wwfiber.com) under which GST receives fiber
between Seattle and Portland, Ore., and approximately $30 million. In exchange, Worldwide
Fiber receives conduit on GST’s Sacramento, Calif.-to-Los Angeles long-haul route. This
agreement marks the third major partnership between the two companies. In August 1998, GST
and Worldwide Fiber partnered to build a 715-mile fiber network between Portland, Ore.,
and Sacramento, Calif., and in April 1999 GST swapped fiber and conduit on its Los
Angeles-to-San Diego long-haul route for conduit on Worldwide Fiber’s 75-mile Seattle
metro ring.

* Network Plus Inc. (www.np1.com), an ICP
serving the Northeast and Southeast, has agreed to a $50 million addition to its existing
contract with equipment provider Lucent Technologies Inc. (www.lucent.com). The
deal will expand the broadband capacity of Network Plus’s Northeast and Southeast
networks. Under the terms of the deal, Lucent now provides its WaveStar OLS 400G, an
optical networking system with a network capacity of up to 400gbps, the equivalent of
transmitting 5 million simultaneous phone calls over a single strand of fiber.

* TelePacific Communications (www.telepacific.com)
has chosen the Fusion 5000 collapsed CO product from Tachion Networks (www.tachion.com) to power its introduction of voice and
data services in a multicity rollout over the next three years. The deal is valued about
$35 million. TelePacific, which provides business-to-business communications and Internet
services on the West Coast, will use the Fusion 5000 as part of its network plan to
provide integrated long-distance voice, data, Internet and multimedia services to
corporate customers.

* Teligent Inc. (www.teligent.com) has
entered two new markets in the United States–Raleigh, N.C., and Hartford, Conn. The ICP
will be targeting small to medium-sized businesses with local, high-speed data and
Internet access services in those markets. With the addition of Raleigh and Hartford,
Teligent now serves business customers in 36 U.S. markets.

* Network Access Solutions (NAS) (www.nas-corp.com)
is working with Cisco Systems Inc. (www.cisco.com)
to offer enhanced business-class Internet access services to its business customers. NAS
has been awarded Cisco Powered Network certification, meaning Cisco routers are integrated
into the NAS CopperNet service portfolio. This represents NAS’s next step toward
introducing an enhanced business-class Internet access service, including CPE, staging,
installation, maintenance, monitoring, Internet connectivity and transport in a single
service bundle.

* US LEC Corp. (www.uslec.com) has completed
the installation of its Lucent Technologies Inc. 5ESS AnyMedia digital switch in
the northern Virginia/Washington, D.C., area. This increases US LEC’s total number of
local switches in its network to 16. This newest office and switching center will provide
service to metro areas in northern Virginia and Washington.