News for and about the Internet2 community

["Lauren Rotman" <>]

FiberCo Announces Professional Services For Research And Higher Education
Community 

University of Arkansas and University of Nebraska Immediately Leverage New
Services

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - November 8, 2006 - FiberCo(R), a fiber holding company
formed by Internet2 to support dark fiber initiatives for U.S. research and
higher education, today announced that it has teamed with Level 3
Communications to offer a new suite of customized professional services to
assist universities and regional networks with efficiently planning,
installing, managing and operating their advanced network infrastructures.
Called FiberCo Professional Services, this highly anticipated offering is
designed to meet the growing need among the research and education community
for support in developing and operating carrier-class networks that can
reliably sustain next-generation network applications and services.  

Since its inception, FiberCo Professional Services has already engaged with
University of Arkansas and University of Nebraska to assist in the
development and deployment of their regional optical networks.

"The research and higher education community has worked diligently with
FiberCo to acquire the network infrastructure necessary to build the
foundation for innovation and collaboration," said Steve Cotter, director of
FiberCo. "FiberCo is now answering the call of our community to provide the
comprehensive expertise and project oversight necessary to bring these
advanced networks to life in the most cost-effective and streamlined manner
possible." 

FiberCo Professional Services leverages Level 3's highly-experienced team of
networking professionals combined with FiberCo's strong background in dark
fiber project management and contract negotiation. The new services will
offer Internet2 members true end-to-end support for any and all components
of the network life-cycle: from inception and design to network management
and maintenance. Offerings include but are not limited to: network
architecture and design, installation, staging and implementation services,
order management and asset tracking, and 24 x 7 x 365 operations support.

University of Arkansas is currently developing the Arkansas Research and
Education Optical Network to connect eleven universities in the state of
Arkansas to facilitate more advanced networking in support of
next-generation research and education applications and services. The
university has selected FiberCo to assist in gathering network requirements,
discovery and procurement of dark fiber, as well as support for analysis and
final selection of network equipment vendors. To date, the University of
Arkansas has completed the first phase of its professional services
engagement as well as purchased over 500 route miles of dark fiber from
FiberCo that will not only connect campuses within the state but will also
serve as the basis for a connection between the University of Arkansas in
Fayetteville and Tulsa, Oklahoma.  

"Arkansas is building a regional optical network for research, education,
medical services and other applications," explained Robert Zimmerman,
director of computing services at the University of Arkansas. "We realized
that additional professional services would make our efforts more
successful. We looked for an organization that was suited to our needs. The
University of Arkansas has been an Internet2 member for almost a decade and
we were able to expand our relationship with Internet2 and FiberCo to secure
the expertise and insights that were desired. I do not know how we could
have accomplished the work on our project if we had not extended that
relationship with Internet2."

In addition, University of Nebraska is also building a high performance
regional network to provide advanced networking services to the state's
research and education community, as well as enhancing its connection to the
new Internet2 networking infrastructure. In particular, the new fiber will
facilitate the university's participation in the Large Hadron Collider
project - the largest particle accelerator in the world expected to come
online in 2007 at CERN in Switzerland.

Through its agreement with FiberCo, the University of Nebraska will receive
overall project management, network architecture, design, and
recommendations on equipment/optronics options as well as on site network
engineering support. Nebraska has already purchased over 260 route miles of
dark fiber from FiberCo which will serve as the basic infrastructure for
their advanced networking needs.

"Rather than invest the time and resources needed to bring optical
networking experts in-house, we are leveraging the expertise of FiberCo
Professional Services to provide the comprehensive support our team needs to
make informed and appropriate decisions about our next-generation network,"
said Dale Finkelson, director of networking, University of Nebraska. "By
examining our specific requirements and understanding our unique networking
environment, FiberCo has been a committed partner and has helped us to
deliver the best network services possible to our community."

FiberCo has arranged with Level 3 to provide pricing for these network
design and implementation services at attractive rates. Pricing is tailored
to fit individual customer needs allowing customers to pick and choose from
an a la carte set of services that can be priced either as a bundle or
individually itemized.  

For more information on FiberCo professional services visit:
http://www.fiberco.org/

About FiberCo(R)
FiberCo provides a means for acquiring, holding, and assigning fiber optic
network assets in support of the Internet2 community's goals of developing
and deploying advanced network applications and technologies. FiberCo
facilitates the ongoing development of regional optical networking
initiatives around the country to complement existing Internet2 network
infrastructure while providing a strategic fiber acquisition capability on
the national scale.  For more information, visit: www.fiberco.org.

About Level 3 Communications
Level 3 (Nasdaq:LVLT) is an international communications and information
services company. The company operates one of the largest Internet backbones
in the world, is one of the largest providers of wholesale dial-up service
to ISPs in North America and is the primary provider of Internet
connectivity for millions of broadband subscribers, through its cable and
DSL partners. The company offers a wide range of communications services
over its 23,000-mile broadband fiber optic network including Internet
Protocol (IP) services, broadband transport and infrastructure services,
colocation services, and patented softswitch managed modem and voice
services. Its Web address is www.Level3.com.

Level 3 services are offered by wholly owned subsidiaries of Level 3
Communications, Inc.

Contact:
Lauren Rotman
Internet2


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