Friday, July 13, 2001 08:50:58 AM - BNamericas.com
Regional, Jul 13, 2001(BNamericas.com via COMTEX)-- International network operator Global Crossing (NYSE: GX) plans to provide broadband services to bandwidth hungry end users as part of its strategy to enter the last mile, a
Global Crossing spokesperson confirmed for BNamericas.com.
"We are still a carrier of carriers, but we are evolving to serve multinational corporations that need bandwidth," the spokesperson said. "We want to go desktop to desktop."
The company announced in 1Q01 that in addition to its carrier business it would target an elite group of around 7,500 global customers including governments, MNCs, media companies and financial services companies.
Global Crossing, which last night held its official launch in Chile, has invested nearly US$2bn in Latin America and US$7.5bn worldwide to deploy submarine and terrestrial fiber optic cables.
It operates the 10,000km Pan American Crossing (PAC) system (Mexico, the US, Central America and South America) and the 18,000km South American Crossing (SAC) system (Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela) in Latin
America.
Network operators in Latin America must now focus on recovering their investments in fiber networks in a world where bandwidth moves from being a scarce resource to a commodity.
Telecoms consultancy Ovum sees economic and competitive pressures as driving rapid consolidation among bandwidth providers. "One-stop shopping will be the norm in order to obtain a complete gamut of broadband services, and the
differentiator will rest on a combination of innovative services and bundled content," according to an Ovum report titled Regional Broadband Networks: South America and Central America. Global Crossing's major competitors in the region include Emergia - a unit of Spain's Telefonica (NYSE: TEF) - and 360Networks (NASDAQ: TSIX). |
