Carrier Channel: News Briefs

Posted: 12/2002

News Briefs

* WorldCom Inc. said Nov. 5
it has advised the Securities and Exchange Commission its restatement of
earnings could top $9 billion. WorldCom made the announcement after the New York
Times and Wall Street Journal reported that WorldCom is close to reaching an
agreement with the SEC, which would result in the payment of fines and a consent
decree in exchange for the dismissal of the fraud case the agency filed in June.

* Progress Telecom, a
wholesale provider of broadband services, has named Lynne Craver to the newly
created position of vice president of network operations. Craver, who had been
the company’s director of network engineering and planning, will be responsible
for managing all aspects of network and customer circuit reliability, including
installation, maintenance, technical support and the network operations center (NOC)
based in St. Petersburg, Fla., that monitors and manages the carrier’s metro and
long-haul network that spans the Eastern United States from Miami to New York.
Craver has held executive and managerial positions at Ameritech Corp., TAD
Telecom Inc. and CyberFusion Inc.

* T-Systems Inc., the North
American subsidiary of T-Systems International, Deutsche Telekom AG’s systems
solutions division, will install a network point of presence (PoP) within Equinix
Inc.‘s Washington, D.C. metropolitan area Internet Business Exchange (IBX)
center. As a part of this agreement, T-Systems will utilize Equinix’s GigE
Exchange, a service that facilitates ISP and content peering between Equinix
customers via a gigabit Ethernet central switching fabric. T-Systems also will
use the center for its private peering relationships, which include most of the
Tier1 and Tier2 global networks. Since mid-2001, the capacity T-Systems shares
with other carriers for the exchange of Internet traffic has doubled to more
than 40Gbps, and is expected to double again within six months.

* WaveCrest Communications Ltd.,
a network services operator based in London, has acquired the wholesale voice
operations of Interoute Telecommunications Ltd. Financial terms of the
agreement were not disclosed. In April WaveCrest bought the wholesale voice
business of Storm Telecommunication Ltd., equipping WaveCrest with a
pan-European switched voice network linking to the Americas, Asia and Eastern
Europe. Interoute owns a network linking 45 cities in nine countries throughout
Europe. The company also operates metropolitan area networks in Amsterdam,
Frankfurt, London, Madrid, Milan, Paris, Rome, Vienna and Zurich.

* FiberNet Telecom Group Inc.,
a company selling wholesale capacity to communications providers in Chicago, Los
Angeles and New York, has completed an agreement to restructure its financial
obligations. FiberNet converted $66 million of debt into equity, leaving the
company with $33.4 million in debt. The New York-based carrier’s carrier issued
440 million shares of common stock at a conversion price of 15 cents per share
to its investors, which represents a 61 percent interest in the company. The
investors have a right to appoint two people to the company’s board of
directors. FiberNet also raised another $3.8 million in equity through a private
offering and converted preferred stock to common stock. The company said any
interest on senior secured debt that accrues before June 30, 2003, will be
capitalized and tacked on to its borrowings under its credit facility.