KPNQwest, a pan-European data communications and hosting company, connected two of the OC-192 self-healing rings in its EuroRings fibre-optic network. This brings the number of completed rings to six out of seven, spanning 15,300km out of a total planned reach of 20,000km. The two new rings connect 13 cities (four of which are new additions to its network) across 3,900 km. This brings the number of cities connected to the EuroRings to 40 of 50 of Europe's leading business centers.
The rings consist of 120 fibre strands, capable of delivering 80 colors per strand at up to 10Gbit/s per color, giving it more than 96 Terabit/s of macro-capacity when fully lit. This represents enough capacity to transmit either 1,000 complete sets of the Encyclopedia Britannica, or 1,000 sets of the complete works of Beethoven, Mozart, Dvorak and Verdi in digital form in one second. KPNQwest will leverage this additional bandwidth to deliver unrivalled capacity to its customers, providing greater amounts of data traffic, at higher speeds, with increased security, and resilience -- supported by the highest service level agreements and quality of service guarantees in the data communications industry.
When complete, the seven rings, comprising the KPNQwest EuroRings, will be the largest, densest and wholly owned fibre-optic backbone, connecting 50 European cities. The network will contain over 2 million-fibre km in Europe -- six times the distance between the Earth and Moon. The EuroRings will be fully operational across Europe by the end of 2001.
The network will also serve as a "bandwidth gateway" by leveraging Qwest's North American infrastructure to deliver seamless connectivity and full network interoperability to an additional 160,000 kilometers across the United States, Asia, the Middle East and beyond. The combined offer, which is reinforced with over 240 tier-one, transit-free peering agreements, provides unrivalled bandwidth and macro-capacity connectivity to support US global customers. KPNQwest has also built out a spare duct alongside the entire 20,000km EuroRings network to support future services.
The Southern and Eastern rings span 3,900 kilometers and connect 13 European cities across 6 countries; Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. The 13 cities of the Eastern and Southern Rings are Prague, Vienna, Munich, Nuremburg/Eschenfelden (Eastern Ring) and Strasbourg/Kehl, Stuttgart, Zurich, Milan, Turin, Marseilles, Lyon, Geneva and Basel (Southern Ring). The four new cities connected to complete the rings are Prague, Vienna, Milan , Turin.
The Eastern Ring connects to the German Ring at both Munich and Eschenfelden. The Southern Ring connects to the Channel Ring through the Paris-Lyon link, to the Western Ring in Basel and Kehl, and to the German Ring through the Stuttgart-Zurich link.
About KPNQwest:
KPNQwest (NASDAQ & ASE: KQIP) is a facilities-based, pan-European provider of data-centric services based on Internet Protocol (IP). For more information, visit www.kpnqwest.com.