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Technology Stocks : Global Crossing - GX (formerly GBLX) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brian P. who wrote (4189)	2/4/2000 8:13:00 PM
From: Jeffrey D	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 15615

KRTBN KNIGHT-RIDDER TRIBUNE BUSINESS NEWS: THE BOSTON GLOBE - MASSACHUSETTS: HIGH-SPEED INTERNET ACCESS PLANNED FOR BERKSHIRE COUNTY, MASS. 95% match; The Boston Globe - Massachusetts - KRTBN ; 04-Feb-2000 12:00:00 am ; 517 words Berkshire County's long quest to get on the information superhighway is taking a big leap forward today, with the announcement that Global Crossing Ltd. and a new Woburn carrier have been picked to wire up the county for broadband-speed Internet access. Members of Berkshire Connect, a group of businesses and government agencies that have lobbied for three years for better Net access, will within four months be able to get high-speed access at barely a third of the current cost. Widely expected to be a national model for improving broadband access in underserved areas, the Berkshire Connect contract represents a successful gambit by local firms that essentially gave telecommunications giants an ultimatum: Bring us fast Net access, or we will do it ourselves and shut you out of what we have proven can be a lucrative market. "I couldn't be more excited about this and what it means for the economic future of the county," said Donald Dubendorf, a Williamstown attorney and chairman of the steering committee organizing the project. "We are going to be competitive with Boston" in competing for businesses that demand high-speed, low-cost Net access. Global Crossing and start-up Equal Access Networks Inc. of Woburn have agreed to invest several million dollars building a broadband network throughout Berkshire County, including leased fiber-optic loops, high-speed fixed-wireless connections, and digital subscriber line access over existing copper phone lines. The network is expected to cut by up to 70 percent the current average of $1,500 a month that most businesses pay to get high-speed access to Net connections in Springfield, by pushing those links much closer to Pittsfield, North Adams, Great Barrington, Williamstown, and other Berkshire communities. Even before Berkshire Connect, the Williamstown-North Adams area had already become a hotbed of Net companies, including two units of Waltham-based Lycos and several businesses located at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. Adding more broadband access is expected to fuel the trend. From Global Crossing's Net link in Springfield, Equal Access will use an existing tower at Mount Greylock in Adams to connect by digital wireless links to MassMOCA, Pittsfield, and Great Barrington, without the need for new towers, said Equal Access president Daniel J. Kelley. "We'll be 100 percent environmentally friendly," Kelley said, adding that those connections will be backed up by leased high-capacity Bell Atlantic lines and in time fiber-optic lines. Equal Access Networks will install and operate the local system from Springfield into the county, while Global Crossing -- which is building a five-continent fiber-optic network of nearly 100,000 route miles -- will handle billing and customer service. Tom Hubbard, vice president of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, a quasi-public state agency that helped organize Berkshire Connect, said his agency is already working with groups in Cape Cod, Franklin County, and the Blackstone Valley that want to repeat the Berkshire strategy. While three years ago it seemed the only way Berkshire County would get fast Net access would be through public subsidies, Hubbard said it now seems the crucial step is for government officials to help local businesses organize themselves to demonstrate unserved demand for broadband access. "The market has changed so rapidly, and there are a lot of providers in the state now," Hubbard said. "Berkshire County proved that if users in a region got together and really hung together to the end, documenting their demand for high-speed access and demanding attention from providers ... there is real hope that the market will respond" without the need for public subsidies. World Reporter All Material Subject to Copyright