Qwest Communications to Deliver Local Broadband Services in Four Major California Markets Starting Early Next Year - Company Business and Marketing

Cambridge Telcom Report, Oct 25, 1999

Qwest Communications International Inc., the broadband Internet communications company, Thursday announced that it will begin offering business customers in four California cities a new choice for high speed local broadband access services. Beginning in the first quarter of 2000, customers in Los Angeles will be able to use the QwestLink local access network to transmit all of their Internet, data, image and voice communications directly to the Qwest nationwide fiber-optic network. Sacramento, San Diego and San Jose/San Francisco customers will have access to these services during the second quarter of 2000.

Qwest plans to add more than 100 jobs throughout California to help complete the expansion of its QwestLink network announced earlier this year. Steven Haggerty has been appointed as regional president of broadband local access

services in the state. Haggerty comes from Nokia, where he served as a member of the senior team responsible for the company's product planning and management for its high-speed access products. He will be based at QwestLink's new offices in San Ramon, Calif. and will oversee network construction, operations and sales to businesses and government customers.

"Once again Qwest is redefining the competitive boundaries for broadband Internet communications by introducing new services to bring the power of the Qwest Internet network directly to customers in major markets throughout the state," said Joseph P. Nacchio, Qwest chairman and CEO. "These key California cities will be the first connected to the QwestLink local access network that will span 25 cities in the U.S. With QwestLink network services, we will provide companies what they need to successfully compete in the digital age."

In each market, QwestLink will deploy a combination of broadband access technologies including:

DIRECT BROADBAND ACCESS -- For large, strategic national accounts that utilize data rich applications or have large bandwidth needs for multiple locations within a city. This type of access will help support bundled data and voice applications that requiring large amounts of bandwidth, while also providing the necessary level of security and protection national account customers require.

FIXED WIRELESS -- In conjunction with its strategic partner, Advanced Radio Telecom, Qwest will provide mid-size businesses with up to 100 megabits of high-speed access to support the use of bandwidth intensive applications such as video streaming, large file transfers and real-time interactive collaboration that are difficult to perform using today's bandwidth-constrained local distribution infrastructure.

DSL -- For small businesses this is ideal for telecommuting, remote office access, Internet access, desktop video conferencing and voice communications. DSL offers high-speed broadband local connectivity to customers and is up to 100 times faster than other remote connection technologies such as the standard telephone line or Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) circuit.

By providing direct local broadband access to the Qwest backbone network, customers will avoid local access charges normally incurred when relying on another local exchange carrier to provide connectivity. Qwest has been approved to operate as a competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) in California and will begin selling services in early 2000.

Qwest has announced plans for local fiber networks in more than 25 major metropolitan areas, bringing its total U.S. network to more than 375,000 local fiber miles. Local access in these areas will be completed and operational by the end of 2001. In addition to the four California cities to start this year, the metropolitan areas include: Albany, Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, New York, Newark, Orange County, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Antonio, St. Louis, Washington D.C. and White Plains.

QwestLink, Qwest's business unit responsible for developing the local access network to complement Qwest's completed nationwide IP-based network, intends to provide local services in 25 markets throughout the U.S. Providing local service, gives Qwest business customers direct access to the company's nationwide, high capacity, Internet-based network. This direct access allows them to maximize advanced communications services including dedicated Internet access, virtual private networks, Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), frame relay, private line and dedicated voice.