Sprint deploys large metro area network in Miami

10 September 2003 Overland Park, KS Lightwave-- Sprint announced that it is beginning to route voice and data traffic onto two large fiber-optic rings throughout the Miami area to enhance network reliability and improve network monitoring capabilities to its area customers.

The two rings total nearly 180 miles and position the all-digital, fiber-optic network closer to area businesses and consumers, enabling them to benefit from the latest network characteristics and technologies. These rings connect the Sprint network to two local telecom exchange points of presence and to several end offices -- the last stop before communications traffic travels to customer premises.

The deployment of the Miami metro network is part of a nationwide initiative to broaden Sprint's local transport infrastructure into metropolitan areas across the United States. In fact, Sprint is driving the full capabilities of its all-digital, fiber-optic network deeper into the metro areas of more than 30 U.S. cities before mid-2004.

"Customers want communications companies to be the guardians of their traffic from end-to-end as much as possible," said Mike Nelson, acting vice president of Access Management at Sprint. "This new Miami metro network will enable Sprint to bring its industry-leading record of reliability and other benefits much closer to its area customers."

The ring architecture being deployed in Miami and other cities is similar to the nationwide network ring design that Sprint and its customers have benefited from for nearly a decade. With the latest self-healing network technology available on hundreds of rings linked across the country, the Sprint network is able to reroute fiber-optic traffic during the primary causes of telecom route failure-- fiber cuts and electronics outages -- in milliseconds. Largely because of this network design, Sprint has led its two major national rivals in reporting the fewest number of FCC-reportable long-distance network outages every year since 1996. The FCC requires that carriers report all outages that block at least 90,000 calls during an event that lasts at least 30 minutes.

Sprint is a global integrated communications provider serving more than 26 million customers in over 100 countries. With approximately 70,000 employees worldwide and nearly $27 billion in annual revenues, Sprint is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying state-of-the-art network technologies, including the United States' first nationwide all-digital, fiber-optic network and an award-winning Tier 1 Internet backbone. Sprint provides local voice and data services in 18 states and operates the largest digital, nationwide PCS wireless network in the United States.