Carrier Channel: News Briefs
Posted: 06/2000
News Briefs
* BTI Telecom Corp.
(www.btitele.com), an ISP in the southeastern United States, has activated its Atlanta-to-Nashville segment of its planned 3,700-mile network of continuous long-haul fiber.
BTI also has expanded its fiber network with an installation in eastern North Carolina and another in the Coastal Carolinas and Georgia.
The 175-mile eastern North Carolina fiber installation will run north from Wilmington through Jacksonville, Greenville and Rocky Mount, N.C., completing BTI’s ring between Rocky Mount and Raleigh. The 500-mile Coastal Carolina installation runs southeast from Raleigh to Fayetteville and Wilmington, N.C., and south through Myrtle Beach and Charleston, S.C., to Savannah, Ga.
* US LEC Corp.
(www.uslec.com), has expanded its long-distance service to allow its business customers to choose US LEC to carry long-distance calls from their branch and satellite office locations. US LEC’s customers can choose long- distance service at a branch office, even if they do not have its local service.
Business customers with smaller branch offices do not require a T1 or PRI connection, and work-related toll calls from home-based and remote employees can be billed automatically directly to the office.
This long-distance offering is available to BellSouth Corp.’s
(www.bellsouth.com) local service customers in US LEC’s Southeast markets. It will be expanded to customers of other local service providers later this year.
* Communications service provider Viatel Inc.
(www.viatel.com) has signed an agreement with Level 3 Communications Inc.
(www.level3.com) to acquire a 25 percent ownership interest, valued at more than $150 million, in the trans-Atlantic fiber optic cable system under construction by Level 3. As a result, Viatel and Level 3 each will own and operate fibers on the trans-Atlantic cable. The 1.28 terabit cable connecting Europe and the United States is expected to be ready for commercial operation this fall. Global Crossing Ltd.
(www.globalcrossing.com) also is participating in the trans-Atlantic cable system.
* Mpower Communications Corp.
(www.mpowercom.com), a facilities-based broadband communications provider, will acquire Primary Network Holdings
(www.primary.net), one of the largest data-centric communication providers in the Midwest, for $145 million in stock.
Based in St. Louis, Primary offers integrated data, Internet and voice services mainly to business customers in St. Louis, Kansas City and Springfield, Mo.; and Kansas City, Kan.
Through the acquisition, Mpower will gain a 60-person direct sales force, data services and bench strength for its regional teams.
The agreement has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies and is expected to close in the third quarter.
