Global Crossing Completes Upgrade on Trans-Atlantic Route - Atlantic Crossing 1 transatlantic cable system - Company Business and Marketing

Cambridge Telcom Report, August 30, 1999

Global Crossing Ltd. Wednesday announced that it has completed the first upgrade of its Atlantic Crossing 1 (AC-1) transatlantic cable system.

AC-1 service capacity is now 80 gigabits per second - twice the initial system capacity. The company accelerated its initial upgrade schedule by 18 months in an attempt to meet broadband demand on the US-Europe route. In addition, Global Crossing recently contracted for a second upgrade of at least 60 Gbps with a ready for service date of March 2000.

Atlantic Crossing 1 is a high capacity, 14,000-kilometer fiber optic system linking the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany. AC-1 utilizes a self-healing SDH (synchronous digital hierarchy) ring architecture and advanced wavelength division multiplexing technology to meet the extraordinary capacity demands in the high-volume, fast-growing North Atlantic corridor.

"AC-1 is the first and foundation link of the rapidly expanding Global Crossing Network," said Bob Annunziata, Global Crossing's Chief Executive Officer. "The Atlantic route is seeing bandwidth demand increases of about 80 percent per year, as Europe increasingly turns to the Internet for information, electronic commerce, and communication of all sorts. By rapidly bringing upgrades of AC-1 into service, we both stay ahead of this dramatic growth in demand, bring to all users -- telephony companies, data-centric multinationals, and Internet providers -- the global connection they all need at an affordable cost."

Global Crossing is building and operating the world's first and most advanced global IP-based datacentric network, an end-to-end fiber optic platform for data, voice, video and Internet transmissions. The Global Crossing Network will span five continents and address 80% of the world's international traffic. A new unit of Global Crossing, Global Marine Systems Limited, possesses the largest flotilla of cable laying and maintenance vessels in the world and currently services more than a third of the world's undersea cable kilometers. Global Crossing's operations are headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda, with executive offices in Los Angeles.

For General Information, Visit Global Crossing at www.globalcrossing.com on the World Wide Web.