Monday September 13, 12:24 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
SOURCE: Qwest Communications International Inc.
Qwest Communications Completes
18,500 Mile Nationwide Network and Shifts Construction
to 25 Local Fiber Networks
Construction in Seven Cities to Be Complete Next Year; 18 More to Follow in
2001
DENVER, Sept. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Qwest Communications International Inc. (Nasdaq: QWST -
news), the broadband Internet communications company, announced that it has completed
construction of 18,500 miles of its Internet-based U.S. network and people and resources are being
shifted to accelerate building 25 local broadband networks.
Qwest will herald the significance of building the new network in a new branding campaign on
television and in magazines starting Wednesday. The advertising will communicate that Qwest has
completed construction of the first high-speed, high-capacity network built for broadband
Internet-based communications. The TV ads will run on major news, sports and entertainment cable
networks, and the print ad will appear in business and information technology publications.
The Qwest network has 888,000 fiber miles across the U.S. Construction was completed on time
and under budget. The state of the art network connects 150 cities nationwide and connects globally
to Europe and the Asia Pacific region. Building an Internet network requires time and
people---2,300 Qwest people working 16 million hours built the network since 1995.
``We focused on speed in completing our new network to be the first company to deliver the
promise of the Internet,' said Joseph P. Nacchio, Qwest chairman and CEO. ``Now we intend to
deliver low-cost Internet and e-commerce services to businesses at a local level.'
To provide local broadband access to Qwest's nationwide network, the company will build
high-speed local fiber networks in 25 major metropolitan areas. With the local networks in place,
Qwest's will increase its total U.S. fiber miles by more than 20 percent to more than 1.1 million fiber
miles. Construction in seven cities is expected to be complete next year. The remaining cities will be
built and operational by the end of 2001.
Local networks will enable Qwest to connect hundreds of businesses of all sizes to the Qwest long
distance backbone network for a wide variety of services including data, image and voice
communications. The 25 cities include: Albany, Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland,
Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Los Angeles, New York, Newark, Orange
County, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Sacramento, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose,
St. Louis, Washington D.C. and White Plains.
Qwest is also expanding its network construction initiatives globally. Qwest is building a
pan-European IP network with KPN, the Dutch telecommunications company, that currently covers
2,100 miles and will span 8,100 miles when it is completed by 2002. In addition, Qwest also has
nearly completed a 1,400-mile network in Mexico and owns capacity in high-speed fiber optic
cables that stretch across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. |
