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Technology Stocks : Qwest Communications (Q) (formerly QWST) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: MangoBoy who wrote (1222)	5/7/1998 10:57:00 PM
From: MangoBoy	Respond to of 6846

[Qwest Announces Shareholders Meeting] DENVER--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 29, 1998--Qwest Communications International Inc. (NASDAQ:QWST) today announced its schedule for the special meeting of its stockholders to vote on the proposed merger between Qwest and LCI International, Inc. The special meeting of Qwest stockholders will be held on June 5, 1998 and the record date for the Qwest special meeting is today, April 29, 1998. Only stockholders of record as of the close of business on the record date are entitled to receive notice of and to vote at the special meeting. Under the terms of the definitive merger agreement, the exchange ratio between shares of LCI common stock and Qwest common stock will be determined based on the volume weighted averages of the trading prices of Qwest common stock for a specified 15 consecutive trading day period prior to the closing of the merger. The consummation of the merger is subject to customary conditions including the receipt of regulatory approvals and approval of Qwest and LCI shareholders.

To: MangoBoy who wrote (1222)	5/7/1998 11:00:00 PM
From: MangoBoy	Respond to of 6846

[Qwest Signs Carrier Sales Contract Worth $60 Million] DENVER--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 4, 1998--Qwest Communications today announced it has secured a three-year, $60 million sales contract with an undisclosed major carrier. Under the terms of the agreement, Qwest will provide the customer DS3, OC3 and OC12 capacity on the nationwide Qwest Macro Capacity(SM) Fiber Network. "As Qwest builds out more of its state-of-the-art nationwide network and obtains transatlantic capacity to Europe, more and more companies are choosing Qwest for their network capacity," said Gregory M. Casey, senior vice president of Carrier Markets at Qwest. "Demand for bandwidth will continue to increase, and Qwest, is ideally positioned to meet the needs of the carrier marketplace."

To: MangoBoy who wrote (1222)	5/7/1998 11:04:00 PM
From: MangoBoy	Respond to of 6846

[Metrocall Signs LCI As Its Primary Long-Distance Services Provider] ALEXANDRIA, Va. April 30, 1998 -(Dow Jones)- Metrocall Inc., a small paging and messaging services provider, Thursday said it signed a three-year agreement for LCI International Inc. to become its primary long-distance service provider. Specific terms weren't disclosed. Metrocall characterized the deal as a "multimillion-dollar agreement," and said LCI will market Metrocall's paging and wireless messaging services to its business and residential customers through direct sales and other distribution channels. Metrocall might reap even larger benefits from its alliance with LCI International once Qwest Communications International Inc. completes its $4.4 billion stock swap acquisition of LCI. The merger will form the fourth-largest long-distance company in the U.S. Qwest (QWST) is building a broad network for providing its high-powered transmission to Internet service providers and phone companies throughout the U.S. The network will be capable of carrying vast amounts of data using the latest laser and optical-fiber technology.

To: MangoBoy who wrote (1222)	5/7/1998 11:07:00 PM
From: MangoBoy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6846

[Nortel Announces Qwest To Beta Test Avici Systems' Terabit Switch Router] LAS VEGAS, May 5 /PRNewswire/ -- At the NetWorld + Interop show today, Nortel (Northern Telecom) (NYSE:NT) announced that Qwest Communications has agreed to beta test the new Terabit Switch Router (TSR). The breakthrough product, announced today by Avici Systems, is designed to allow carriers to cost-effectively deploy IP services over their existing fiber networks. This news follows the April 14 announcement that Nortel and Avici are collaborating to develop the first carrier-grade terabit IP network. "Technological innovation is constantly occurring, and to remain ahead of the curve, Qwest will continue to look for technologies that tap into the capabilities of Qwest's state-of-the-art native IP nationwide network," said Larry Seese, executive vice president of Network Engineering and Operations for Qwest. "We look forward to beta testing the new Terabit Switch Router." Using the model of the Internet itself, Avici has designed a switch/routing platform that is both highly fault-tolerant and highly scaleable -- from just a few hundred megabits to multiple terabits per second. By allowing native IP traffic to travel on existing fiber-optic, frame relay or ATM networks, the TSR offers carriers a tremendous amount of flexibility. The TSR can concatenate multiple trunks into a large virtual trunk of up to 160 gigabits per fiber, even if the original trunks are of different wavelengths or are traveling diverse routes. With scaleability from 2.5 to 160 gigabits per fiber, Nortel's high-capacity optical networks portfolio is already capable of supporting the TSR with maximum fiber capacity at minimum cost per bit. In addition, Avici's new product will interoperate fully with future Nortel WDM products. In particular, Nortel intends to develop independent optical wavelength capability to enable interworking between Avici IP switches and Nortel IP-optimized backbone networks. A long-standing customer of Nortel, Qwest is currently using Nortel's optical networking, tandem switching, and intelligent networking systems in its 16,285 mile network. In 1997, Qwest created the nation's first native IP coast-to-coast, 10 gigabit-per-second network using Nortel optical networking technology. If maximized for two terabit per second transmission over 24 fiber pairs, the network is capable of delivering the entire literary contents of the Library of Congress from coast-to-coast in 20 seconds. Strategic agreements between Nortel and Avici Systems include distribution, licensing and technology-sharing arrangements and call for Nortel to purchase an equity stake of approximately 20 percent in Avici. Avici Systems, Inc., headquartered in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, is the premier developer of Multi-Terabit Switch/Router technology aimed at providing the next generation of scaleable, carrier-class IP switches for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) worldwide. SOURCE Northern Telecom Limited -0- 5/5/98 /CONTACT: Joey Nord of Nortel, 770-708-5059, joey_nord@nortel.com, or Frank McNally of Nortel, 703-712-8374, frank.mcnally@nortel.com or visit Nortel's web-site at nortel.com

To: MangoBoy who wrote (1222)	5/7/1998 11:22:00 PM
From: MangoBoy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6846

[LCI Posts Strong Earnings Growth Ahead Of Merger With Qwest] NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Long-distance telephone company LCI International Inc., which last month said it agreed to be acquired by Qwest Communications International Inc. in a $4.4 billion stock deal, Tuesday announced a better-than-expected 32% increase in first-quarter earnings. The McLean, Va., company said net income came to $29 million, or 29 cents a share on a fully diluted basis, compared with $22 million, or 22 cents a diluted share, in the year-earlier period. The mean estimate of 15 analysts surveyed by First Call was for net income of around 27 cents per share. LCI (LCI) said revenue increased 22% to $448 million, while telecom traffic increased 21% to 3.5 billion minutes of usage. LCI, the company that pioneered flat-rate pricing for long-distance phone service, will become a key part of Denver-based Qwest, which is building an expensive fiber-optic network that it is eager to fill with long-distance traffic. LCI has lacked international and local facilities, and needed to combine or face the threat of being steamrolled by larger carriers such as the planned combination of MCI Communications Corp. and WorldCom Inc. LCI Chairman H. Brian Thompson was reluctant to sell the company but LCI's board advocated the marriage, convinced that the second-tier carrier needed to participate in the wave of mergers sweeping the industry. Qwest has been one of the hottest companies on Wall Street, grabbing headlines with its bold strategy of building robust fiber-optic pipelines. Founded by railroad baron Philip Anschutz, the company started out as a "carrier's carrier," selling capacity to phone companies such as Frontier Corp. and GTE Corp. Last year, Qwest pushed into the retail business in earnest with a splashy, 7.5 cents-a-minute, long-distance offering that sends voice calls using Internet technology. The question now is whether Qwest-LCI can develop new applications and products to fill up the carrier's vast pipes. The combined companies, with their 2.3 million customers and $2.3 billion in combined 1997 revenue, control only a small fraction of the $90 billion-a-year long-distance market. The top three long-distance companies are AT&T Corp., the combined MCI-WorldCom Inc. and Sprint Corp. Some market watchers think Qwest-LCI could ultimately be bought by a Baby Bell company to energize its own long-distance business. Many analysts and telecom executives believe that the industry will come to be dominated by four or five global players, and that smaller companies will either have to be a part of these bigger entities or be crushed.