Carriers' great exchange

In separate agreements, Williams Communication Group and Metromedia Fiber Network announced a fiber exchange worth $230 million to each company, and Global Crossing and Primus Telecommunications announced a reciprocal capacity agreement (see related story on page 16).

MFN and Williams signed a 20-year deal in dark fiber and maintenance. The MFN capacity purchase fits with Williams' plan to build out its network, said Frank Semple, president of Williams Network.

Williams, a fiber backbone provider, is halfway through its plan to build 32,000 route miles linking 125 major cities. Currently Williams must provision circuits over third-party local access networks to get into metropolitan areas. The MFN agreement will save money and obviate the need for a local access provider, Semple said. "That last-mile segment is a significant part of the overall cost [of a long-haul run]," he said.

MFN, which sells fiber to carriers, end customers and the government, built its business by installing "super chunks of fiber" in metropolitan areas, said CEO Stephen Garofalo.

The agreement also gives Williams access to MFN's points of presence, major telecom hubs and other buildings in MFN's 11 metro areas. "We need dark fiber to extend from our POPs into the vicinity of carrier hotels," Semple said. The building access is worth $87 million, Garofalo said. In return, Williams will get $87 million from MFN for collocation in Williams' long-haul POPs.

MFN has no immediate plans to turn up the long-haul fiber it acquired in the swap, but Garofalo considers it a "strategic asset." "We have connected all the cities on a national network," he said. "We have increased the value of the infrastructure we have in all the [11] cities."

Access One Communications and Web Quill announced an asynchronous transfer mode network buildout that will provide digital subscriber line services throughout the southeastern U.S. Services will be launched by the end of the summer.

Level 3 Communications signed a master service agreement with NorthEast Optic Network under which Level 3 will lease an unlimited amount of bandwidth in service levels ranging from DS-3 to OC-48.

Millennium Optical Networks, a New York-based competitive local exchange carrier, will use Sycamore Networks' SN 8000 optical networking solutions in its new network.

Wireless CLEC Teligent rolled out its SmartWave services in Cleveland. With this addition, the company now offers local, long-distance and high-speed Internet services in 27 U.S. markets.