The Nasdaq Stock Market and MCI WorldCom Announce Completion of Trading Extranet for the New Millennium
Doubles Nasdaq's Trading Capacity to Four Billion Shares
a Day
Washington, D.C., September 22, 1999-The Nasdaq Stock Market®
and MCI WorldCom, Inc. (NASDAQ:WCOM) today announced the completion of
one of the world's largest Extranets that more than doubles the
speed and capacity of Nasdaq's electronic trading network. Under
current market characteristics, the Enterprise Wide Network II (EWN II)
can handle up to four billion shares traded per day and can be scaled
up, if necessary, to accommodate an eight billion share day.
Average Nasdaq volume in 1999 is 985 million shares per day, with
the peak of 1.4 billion shares reached on April 14, 1999.
MCI WorldCom implemented and will maintain the EWN II. "One of
the many advantages Nasdaq's new Extranet offers is its
simultaneity. When a message is entered by a broker, subscribers
throughout the system nationwide receive it within 500 milliseconds.
That simultaneous broadcast of information is something the Internet
does not yet offer. We thank MCI WorldCom for a job well done,"
said Alfred R. Berkeley, III, President of The Nasdaq Stock Market.
"This advanced trading network forms the basis of Nasdaq's
premier access service3/4and will be complemented in the future with
lower-cost second tier services."
Said MCI WorldCom Global Solutions Senior Vice President Anthony T.
Russo, "Another key advantage of Nasdaq's new Extranet is its
guaranteed delivery of all time-sensitive data. Considering the
critical nature of the data, for Nasdaq / MCI WorldCom instance a $100
million order, it's crucial that each and every single transmission
is accounted for."
EWN II was completed ahead of schedule, due to an accelerated
18-month process whereby MCI WorldCom successfully migrated 7,000
trading work-stations to the new Extranet.
Users of the highly reliable EWN II are assured no single point of
failure can affect any part of the entire system. The custom,
high-speed Internet protocol (IP) network integrates Compaq services,
Compaq AlphaServers with Tru64 UNIX, Cisco (Nasdaq:CSCO) 7500 series,
12000 series Gigabit Switch Routers, and other state-of-the-art
equipment, allowing the network to operate at speeds up to 45 Megabits
per second. At the heart of the Extranet is MCI WorldCom-designed
intelligent-node architecture that provides secure, reliable and
simultaneous data transmissions to brokers who monitor stocks, place
trades and query the market for real-time information in a
Windows-based PC environment.
On November 20, 1997, Nasdaq and MCI WorldCom announced a $600
million dollar contract to deliver the EWN II Extranet and replace the
award winning Enterprise Wide Network (EWN), which MCI WorldCom
installed for Nasdaq in 1995. MCI WorldCom officials say MCI was able
to develop the new network ahead of schedule because it was able to
leverage past experience gained from designing, building and deploying
the initial trading network previously built for Nasdaq.
EWN II is managed by MCI WorldCom Global Solutions, which focuses on
network architecture, implementation and compliance, as well as ongoing
maintenance to optimize the performance of a customer's global
telecommunications infrastructure. It has dedicated operations staff
working at Nasdaq's data centers in Trumbull, CT, and Rockville,
MD. Backup support is provided by MCI WorldCom's Network Operations
center in Cary, North Carolina.
MCI WorldCom is a global leader in communications services with 1998
revenues of more than $30 billion and established operations in over 65
countries encompassing the Americas, Europe and the Asia-Pacific
regions. MCI WorldCom is a premier provider of facilities-based and
fully integrated local, long distance, international and Internet
services. MCI WorldCom's global networks, including its
state-of-the-art pan-European network and transoceanic cable systems,
provide end-to-end high-capacity connectivity to more than 40,000
buildings worldwide. MCI WorldCom is traded on NASDAQ under WCOM. For
more information on MCI WorldCom, visit the World Wide Web at
http://www.wcom.com.
The Nasdaq Stock Market lists nearly 5,000 companies, has a larger
dollar volume, and trades more shares per day than any other U.S.
market. Nasdaq is a subsidiary of the National Association of
Securities Dealers, Inc. (NASD), the largest securities-industry,
self-regulatory organization in the United States. For more information
about Nasdaq, visit the Nasdaq Web site at www.nasdaq.com or the Nasdaq
NewsroomSM at http://www.nasdaqnews.com.
