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To: Dennis Doubleday who wrote (4844)	10/28/1998 1:29:00 PM
From: Hagar	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21876

The decison makers at Level3 were from MCI where FORE switches were used. There decision had a lot to do with their experience and satisfaction with FORE. Deals aren't necessarily decided on technical merit.

To: Dennis Doubleday who wrote (4844)	10/28/1998 5:56:00 PM
From: Mr.Fun	Respond to of 21876

I understand how you would get the impression that FORE had all the L3 business, but there is more here than meets the eye. It was interesting that FORE rushed that L3 press release out so quickly. Of course, all companies can be counted upon to twist the truth in their pr. Since that time, Level3 has taken delivery of more than 20 Ascend CBX-500 switches. There are less than 10 ASX-4000 backbone nodes in the network. The original choice of FORE was driven by several factors: 1) as mentioned the MCI guys were pushing for it 2) FORE bid significantly below Ascend and 3) Ascend's OC-48 card was not yet in general availability. However, for the edge switches Ascend was a no brainer because of the need for frame relay service, IP navigator and a real network management system. All together, Ascend has twice as much ATM business at L3 than FORE. It will be interesting how L3 decides to go in its phase 2 deployment in 1999. I know how I would bet.