Level 3: Enterprise demand is strong. Period.

Despite widespread angst over the current macroeconomic environment, Level 3 said it has seen no softness in demand from enterprise customers and is working hard to ramp its sales force to meet that demand.

“With respect to enterprise, we’ve seen no weakening of demand -- period,” said James Crowe, Level 3’s chief executive officer, during the carrier’s second-quarter earnings call today.

The company reported $1.09 billion in revenue for the second quarter, the same as its first quarter and up 4% from a year earlier. It also slashed its net loss by 84% from a year earlier to $33 million in the quarter, thanks mainly to the sale of its Vyvx advertising distribution business. And it expects to have positive free cash flow for the rest of the year and next year.

“We believe industry reports of slowing or increasing demand for certain services are often explained by customers shifting between various services or even to dark fiber rather than actual fluctuations in overall aggregate demand,” Crowe said. “We, like most providers, are seeing quarter-to-quarter variability in demand across specific product families, given the increasing trend toward cross-product substitution by customers. This fungibility is particularly true between waves, private lines, Ethernet services, high-speed IP services and, increasingly, TDM services. And it points to the importance of having a complete set of services that meet customers’ rapidly changing needs.”

“Certain of our competitors who mention weakening in one service or another generally are those who have a limited or narrow product line,” he added. “The broader service providers -- for instance, AT&T yesterday -- and Level 3 continue to note very strong overall aggregate demand.”

Current pricing trends also vary according to specific service segments, Crowe said.

“For transport and infrastructure services, including long-haul and metro dark fiber, wavelengths, private lines and Ethernet-based services, prices are generally stable,” Crowe said. “In some cases, such as collocation and metro fiber, prices are up in absolute terms. This dynamic -- an increase in actual prices -- is increasingly apparent as one moves closer to fiber and closer to the metro and individual points of traffic aggregation.”