Expands Pan-European Network to Seven Countries Covering 75
Per Cent of Europe
MILAN, ITALY AND GENEVA, SWITZERLAND -- March 22, 2000 - MCI
WorldCom, the leading pan-European facilities-based communications
company, adds Geneva, Switzerland and Milan, Italy to its pan-European
network, currently reaching approximately 75 per cent of the $225
billion European telecom market. In addition, the company launched a
new metropolitan city fiber network in Milan.
MCI WorldCom's pan-European network, also known as Ulysses, is a
state-of-the-art, high-speed backbone network that connects major
business regions in the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany
and now Italy and Switzerland. Italy is the fourth largest market and
Switzerland is the sixth largest market in Europe.
MCI WorldCom is the only company in Europe that connects this number
of countries over a single network, providing end-to-end services. The
company will invest an additional US$1.5 billion toward expanding
facility -based operations outside the US in 2000.
The recently completed Geneva and Milan sections extend Ulysses by
approximately 2,000km and the network now stretches nearly 14,000km
with initial total bandwidth of 10Gbit/s.
Liam Strong, CEO, MCI WorldCom International said: "Today's
announcement puts two more major European business centers on our
wholly-owned and managed global network. We look forward to delivering
the many unique attributes that only MCI WorldCom can provide to our,
Milan and Geneva-based customers and to those customers world-wide
seeking seamless services into these major business centers."
MCI WorldCom's new metropolitan city network in Italy, one of the
fastest growing telecom markets valued at US$34 billion, will bring
lower costs and connect Milanese business customers to the company's
seamless, global and wholly-owned network. The Geneva city network will
be ready for service at the end of July and will enable Geneva based
business customers to take advantage of MCI WorldCom's high quality,
high speed bandwidth and end-to-end managed services.
MCI WorldCom (NASDAQ: WCOM) is a global leader in
"all-distance" communications services with operations in
more than 65 countries. Revenues in 1999 were $37 billion, with more
than $15 billion from high-growth data, Internet and international
services. MCI WorldCom and Sprint have announced a merger agreement,
which the companies expect to close in the second half of 2000 after
regulatory and shareholder approvals. For more information go to
http://www.wcom.com.
