ACADEMIA

BROOMFIELD, Colo. -- Level 3 Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:LVLT) today announced 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.