Level 3 Lands Higher Ed Deals

Level 3 is pushing into this promising market with two new metropolitan dark fiber deals with The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and London City University.

by Colin C. Haley Boston.internet.com [October 23, 2002]

While telecom carriers delay purchases, colleges and universities are upgrading network capacity, viewing the added bandwidth as a competitive edge for students, professors and researchers.

Level 3 Communications is continuing its push into this promising market with two new metropolitan dark fiber deals with The California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and London City University.

Financial terms of the agreements, which run for 10 years and three years, respectively, were not disclosed. The London City University contract also includes colocation services with Level 3 (Nasdaq: LVLT).

"Our broadband infrastructure, transport and (Internet protocol) services, and network connectivity are well suited to serving the requirements of this market," said Jack Waters, Level 3's Chief Technology Officer.

In addition to today's customer deals, Level 3 Spokesman Paul Lonnegren said Level 3 has closed a slew of agreements with universities or research entities this year.

One of the most significant is with the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC), a non-profit corporation founded by California's public and private universities. CENIC will use Level 3 fiber to create a statewide services network linking 40 research institutions across the state.

Other customers include DANTE (Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe), a government-backed pan-European research community network operator; and MCNC, a a non-profit technology research, networking and supercomputing service center in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.

For Caltech, the Level 3 deal will help it participate in the CENIC program and other initiatives that seek to marry communications and networking to facilitate video-streaming, distance learning, distributed storage and remote imaging, among other applications.

"Academic and research interests will be served in a cost effective way not previously possible," said Joe Dundas, director of IT infrastructure at the Los Angeles school.

Level 3, based in Broomfield, Colo., isn't the only company that has taken notice of the higher education.

As wary corporate customers delay large purchases, IT companies are targeting an oft-overlooked, but still growing market. Competing for students, U.S. colleges and universities are spending billions of dollars to wire dorms (admission recruiters tout "plug-per-pillow" capabilities), install 802.11 hubs and enable distance learning programs.

Among those making a concerted effort to land college equipment and service deals are Enterasys Networks and Navisite. For other software and database systems Microsoft, Peoplesoft and Oracle are all keenly aware of college buyers, analysts say.

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