Kiewit plans to build next gen. Fiber optic backbone network using IP Internet technology
BY SETH SCHIESEL
New York Times
Joining a growing list of companies that are building new national
communications networks, Peter Kiewit Sons Inc. has said that it intends to
spend up to $3 billion over the next three years to build a 20,000-mile web of
fiber optic cable.
The system, which the company wants to complete by 2001, would be the first
national fiber optic network based on Internet technology rather than on
standard telephone technology. If the Internet technology works as predicted,
it could allow Kiewit to charge prices for voice and data communications much
lower than those of its competitors, while maintaining healthy profit margins.
Kiewit plans to sell access to its network only to business customers. Most of
those would be small and medium-sized companies, but some could be upstart
long-distance carriers that would resell time on the Kiewit network to
consumers.
Monday the Kiewit subsidiary that intends to build the network, Kiewit
Diversified Group Inc., announced that it had changed its name to Level 3
Communications Inc.
Level 3 is led by a team of executives who used to run the MFS
Communications Co., the alternate local telephone carrier that was acquired in
1996 by Worldcom Inc. for $14 billion.
The move by Kiewit, a private company based in Omaha, Neb., that has its
primary operations in construction and mining, brings to four the number of
companies building new national communications networks. Kiewit joins IXC
Communications, Williams Cos. and Qwest Communications subsidiary of
Anschutz Corp. Established long-distance carriers like AT&T also spend
billions each year upgrading their systems.
[A prime candidate for ASND's GRF IP switch router. Williams & ATT & QWest are
big customers of ASND's CBX 500 & GX550 for ATM edge/core multiservice ATM switches.] |
