9/25/00
XO Will Provide Nationwide Gigabit Ethernet Service
Yahoo! Signs on as First GigE Customer, Leveraging the Ultra-High Speed, Scalable and Cost-Effective Transport Solution to Address their Networking Requirements
McLean, VA - XO Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq:XOXO), formerly known as NEXTLINK Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq:NXLK), and one of the world’s fastest growing providers of broadband communications services, announced today that it is launching a suite of Ethernet Services, including Gigabit Ethernet (GigE), in selected markets in November and throughout most of XO’s 50+ markets in the United States by mid 2001.
The XO Gigabit Ethernet solution is designed to connect customers’ local area networks (LANs) within a metropolitan area, leveraging XO’s extensive metro fiber assets currently spanning more than 4,300 route miles. These assets, combined with the XO suite of Ethernet services will yield unparalleled private networking data speeds ranging from 10 to 100 Mbps and 1 Gbps connections which will both simplify the customers’ network connections and significantly reduce customers’ costs.
In addition, XO also announced that Yahoo!, Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO), a leading Internet communications, commerce and media company, has signed an agreement with XO to be its preferred provider of Ethernet service. This agreement allows Yahoo! to leverage the benefits of quick provisioning turnaround times and rapid bandwidth scalability that the XO Ethernet services provide.
“XO already owns and operates the necessary strategic assets – robust metro fiber networks across the United States – that positions us to very quickly become a market leader in the GigE space,” said Nate Davis, president and chief operating officer of XO. “In addition to these network assets we have the critical back-end OSS systems, an established customer support organization and financial stability that will be required to support a long-term market strategy. Add it all up and XO has the ability to deliver an Ethernet solution that our competitors can’t match due to long term capability limitations and cost and capacity constraints.”
Ideally suited for enterprise networks, storage area network providers, Internet content distribution, application and Internet service providers, this extremely cost-effective transport solution is designed to offer interconnections at full network speed, without network performance degradation experienced with other forms of metropolitan area network transport. The XO Ethernet Services are designed to deliver ample bandwidth with scaling headroom for future requirements, at very competitive prices. In addition, this transport solution is simple to manage, requiring no configuration management by the customer. XO’s Ethernet Services will allow enterprise customers to focus on managing their own data network without contending with interconnection specifics.
“Given our significant networking requirements, we feel confident with our decision to go with XO,” said Farzad Nazem, chief technology officer, Yahoo! “We believe that XO has the network and the proper support to meet our needs, as well as the ability to scale nationally which makes them a good fit for Yahoo!”
Yahoo!’s vast global audience demands increasing amounts of bandwidth. In order to meet this growing need, Yahoo! selected multiple XO Ethernet channels to address current capacity requirements and to stay ahead of the burgeoning increase in bandwidth demand, by enabling rapid scalability and provisioning. Yahoo! is leveraging this transport solution to offer accelerated dissemination of content throughout the Internet.
“We couldn’t have come out of the gates with a better client than Yahoo! and we believe the relationship can serve as an important momentum force for customer acceptance of our GigE service in the marketplace,” added Henry R. Nothhaft, Vice Chairman of XO. “A vast majority of today’s Internet traffic originates and terminates in California, with Silicon Valley being ground zero for much of that traffic flow. As a result, there are a growing number of companies, like Yahoo!, that require a solution which can bypass local bandwidth bottlenecks and connect local computing networks to high-speed fiber.”
XO will sell the suite of Ethernet services through its 800+ person direct sales force, which includes data, overlay sales specialists and experienced national account sales executives.
In other news today, XO announced a revolutionary flat rate service combination for small and medium-sized business locations with 10-100 employees that includes local, long distance, Internet Access and Web hosting services. The Company also announced that the XO Communications name would replace the NEXTLINK and Concentric brands in the marketplace and would be supported by an extensive fall advertising campaign.
About XO Communications XO Communications is one of the world’s leading providers of broadband communications services offering local and long distance voice communication services, Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) access, Web hosting and e-commerce service, Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), dedicated access, global transit and application infrastructure services for delivering applications over the Internet or a VPN.
XO has assembled an unrivaled set of facilities-based broadband networks and Tier One Internet peering relationships that, when complete, will serve much of the United States, Canada and Europe. In the United States, XO has more than 430,000 metro fiber miles in operation and a 384,000 fiber-mile inter-city network under construction. The Company is also North America’s largest holder of fixed broadband wireless spectrum, with licenses covering 95 percent of the population of the 30 largest U.S. cities and a partnership with licenses covering all of the top cities in Canada. XO has also agreed in principle to acquire more than 80,000 metro fiber miles in Europe to serve the London, Frankfurt, Brussels, Amsterdam and Paris markets and an 88,000 fiber-mile pan-European fiber network connecting 21 major European cities and transatlantic capacity that will eventually expand to 10 Gbps.
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