Exodus Communications Inc. (www.exodus.net) plans to acquire Global Crossing Ltd.'s (www.globalcrossing.com) GlobalCenter, the second largest web hosting provider, for $6.5 billion in stock. The merger aligns the two largest providers of collocation services.
Focal Communications Corp. (www.focal.com) launched the first of several Focal Internet exchanges, sites sitting at the edge of the network that allow customers to bypass congested public exchange points and carriers to collocate and privately peer. Focal will initially offer three core services at each of its exchanges, including managed Internet access; EdgeLocation, which allows companies to host applications at the sites; and private peering. The first exchanges are in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.
AT&T Corp. (www.att.com) opened an Internet data center in Mesa, Ariz. The center is part of a $2 billion plan in which AT&T, British Telecommunications plc (www.bt.com) and Concert Communications Co. (www.concert.com) plan to build 44 data centers in 16 countries over the next three years.
BellSouth Corp. (www.bellsouth.com) recently opened e-Business Centers in Atlanta and Miami to support its new "e-Platform" for business strategy. The e-Platform will provide dedicated and custom hosting solutions, managed storage, managed security, content distribution, caching services, disaster recovery and ASP services. BellSouth will support e-Platform with solutions from Qwest Communications International Inc. (www.qwest.com) and Sun Microsystems Inc. (www.sun.com).
Jazztel plc (www.jazztel.com) signed a strategic alliance with Intel Corp. (www.intel.com) to develop three data centers that will offer ASP services to businesses. They will be located in the Spanish cities of Barcelona and Madrid, and in Lisbon, Portugal.
NewSouth Communications Corp. (www.newsouth.com) recently launched WebHosting, a domain-based website hosting solution for business customers. WebHosting gives customers the ability to update and maintain their accounts through a 24-hour online Control Panel. Customers can analyze website performance around the clock by tracking the number of site visitors, their origination and the pages viewed. The new service also offers customers unlimited toll-free technical support from NewSouth's Data Center. In addition to WebHosting, NewSouth offers additional Internet and data products including NewSouth.net, SCREAMIN DSL, and e-mail services, as well as local, long distance and enhanced telecommunications services.
Logix Communications Corp. (www.logixcom.com) added VPN services to its Logix DSL Solutions.
Broadwing Inc. (www.broadwing.com) is using its eClass IP VPN services to offer voice capabilities. Using this new VoIP offering, businesses can reduce long-distance telephony costs between offices by using their existing wide area data networks for voice traffic.
UUNET Technologies Inc. (www.uu.net), a subsidiary of WorldCom Inc. (www.wcom.com), debuted Access Choice, which combines the company's DSL, broadband mobile wireless and dial-in access services for remote users, travelers and telecommuters. Access Choice includes UUmobile 128, a broadband wireless service operating at 128kbps, which uses Metricom Inc.'s Ricochet (www.ricochet.com) wireless infrastructure and UUNET's global Internet network. This service will be available in six or more major cities by the fourth quarter of this year. Also included are UUlink DSL Corporate and UUdial Corporate. The DSL service is available at speeds ranging from 128kbps to 1mbps and can be purchased in more than 50 U.S. markets. UUdial is a dial-up Internet access offering that is offered at 56kbps and 128kbps ISDN speeds.
Intermedia Communications Inc. (www.intermedia.com) is rolling out multilink frame relay and inverse multiplexing over ATM access solutions for customers who need more than a T1 but less than a T3. To provide the service, Intermedia is deploying Advanced Switching Communications technology that bundles multiple T1 lines to provide incremental bandwidth options directly to business customers. Intermedia also introduced IntermediaOne, an integrated voice, Internet access and data communications platform for businesses. The package includes unified messaging, high-speed Internet access, local and long-distance telephony, broadband data and web hosting delivered over a single T1 connection. The service, which will be rolled out in 50 cities in the next few months, is already available in Boston; Charlotte and Raleigh, N.C.; Chicago; Minneapolis; New York; and Pittsburgh.
