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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY / MAY 19, 2003: VOL. 2 NO. 20
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Special Features:
LEVEL 3 TO PROVIDE DARK FIBER
SERVICES TO INTERNET2
Level 3 Communications Inc recently announced that it has signed a
multi-year,
multi-million-dollar IRU agreement to supply intercity dark fiber services to
the National Research and Education Fiber Company (Fiberco), a new
organization established by Internet2 to purchase and distribute fiber-optic
assets to regional advanced networking organizations and research universities
throughout the U.S.
The fiber, when lit by these groups, is expected to enable testing of a
wide
variety of highly advanced network applications, including uncompressed
high-definition television quality video, remote control of scientific
instruments such as mountaintop telescopes and electron microscopes,
collaboration using immersive virtual reality, and grid computing.
"Level 3 has become an increasingly important partner to the research
university community, and has been instrumental in helping us address our
existing and anticipated fiber-optic networking needs," said Steve Corbato,
director of backbone network infrastructure for Internet2. "With this
capability, Fiberco will support the important regional optical network
development work now underway among our membership."
"Internet2 operates one of the premier research networks in the world, and
we
are pleased that Level 3 has been chosen to support their fiber-optic
networking requirements," said Kevin Dundon, senior vice president of Global
Infrastructure Services for Level 3. "Level 3 is committed to serving the
research and education community by providing services on what we believe is
the highest performance and best maintained fiber-optic network in the
U.S."
(3)Link Dark Fiber provides the research and education community with the
infrastructure and services required to operate and maintain an advanced
fiber-optic network that will serve highly specialized, bandwidth-intensive
needs far into the future. (3)Link Dark Fiber services include optical fiber
cable, fiber-based network extensions, colocation and running line facility
space, power, and operation and maintenance of the network.
Level 3's intercity dark fiber services feature approximately 16,000
intercity
route miles in the U.S. connecting more than 150 cities and an approximately
3,600-mile pan-European network. Level 3's network employs high fiber counts,
the latest generation of optical fiber, and carrier-neutral colocation
facilities.
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