MCI WorldCom DSL Deployment Reaches Milestone Mark of 1,000 Points Of Presence
EarthLink Reaches Agreement with UUNET to Provide National DSL Services Fairfax, Va., July 13, 1999 - MCI WorldCom today announced it has reached more than 1,000 Points of Presence (PoPs) in its DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) deployment, significantly boosting the company's DSL coverage to 850 cities in 22 metropolitan areas across the United States. The deployment, made available through UUNET, MCI WorldCom's Internet division, provides wide reach within each top-tier metropolitan area and allows more businesses to access affordable broadband service from a nearby location. Already approximately five months ahead of schedule, the company will continue its deployment efforts and plans to bring the number of PoPs to 1,500 by year-end and to 2,000 by the end of next year.
"As the first Internet Service Provider to reach the 1,000 PoP milestone, we can provide DSL to the business and wholesale market with the broadest reach in the industry," said Ralph Montfort, director of product marketing for dedicated services, UUNET. "This announcement demonstrates MCI WorldCom's leadership-role in providing nationwide DSL access."
In a separate announcement today, leading Internet Service Provider EarthLink said that it has entered into an agreement with UUNET to provide consumer-priced DSL nationwide to its members. EarthLink has begun testing in Los Angeles and Boston and will conduct market tests later this year in Dallas, Minneapolis and Charlotte, N.C. EarthLink plans to make the service available in major metropolitan markets by the end of the year.
"UUNET's extensive national DSL network will allow us to offer DSL services to our members on a much broader scale than before," said Jon Irwin, senior vice president of broadband services, EarthLink. "By allowing us to reach such a large part of the country through one provider, we'll significantly cut down on the time it takes to roll service out in different areas and significantly reduce our operations costs."
DSL Offerings
The DSL service for corporate customers, UUlinksm DSL, is a fully integrated, end-to-end Internet access solution. Designed to provide all the bandwidth, speed and flexibility necessary to meet mission-critical business demands, UUlink DSL is a symmetrical service currently available in bandwidths from 128 Kbps through 768 Kbps.
The DSL consumer service, made available through the company's resellers, is asymmetrical with per-user bandwidth that ranges from 64 Kbps to 384 Kbps upstream and from 384 Kbps to 768 Kbps downstream, depending on such factors as the customer's region and distance from the PoP.
Availability
UUlink DSL coverage is currently available in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington. The company plans to reach new cities for UUlink throughout the rest of the year including Atlanta, Austin, Texas, Ft. Lauderdale, Fla, Detroit, Houston, and Miami in the fourth quarter of 1999.
UUNET DSL service for wholesale customers is available today in 22 metropolitan areas including Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, and Seattle. Additional markets planned for year-end include Austin, Texas, Cincinnati, Detroit, Orlando, Fla., and St. Louis.
By year-end, MCI WorldCom plans to rollout Enterprise DSL for integrated access to frame relay, ATM and Internet in 13 metropolitan cities, including Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle.
Pricing
Current promotional pricing for UUlink DSL starts at $139 per month for 128 Kbps access and $189 per month for 384 Kbps access. Internet connectivity and the customer's local loop are included as part of the current pricing program. A complete business-class offering, UUlink DSL is a multi-user service with end to end proactive monitoring. UUNET installation engineers are assigned to each account for dedicated customer service throughout the installation process and for additional technical support. UUlink DSL also comes with multiple IP addresses, 20 email boxes, multiple Usenet newsreaders and a domain name.
For the UUNET DSL consumer service to wholesale customers, rates to resellers depend upon volume commitment and chosen service level parameters. End-user prices to consumers are determined by each service provider.
MCI WorldCom Enterprise DSL will offer 10 access speed choices ranging from 128 Kbps to 7 Mbps (where available). Pricing will vary depending on access speed, service level and customer premise equipment type and application. MCI WorldCom Enterprise DSL will include 24 x 7 pro-active monitoring and single circuit support for stand-alone frame relay, ATM, IP and voice applications as well as multiple, integrated services over the same Enterprise DSL access circuit.
