LEVEL 3 ANNOUNCES DARK FIBER DEALS VALUED AT $700 MILLION
Level 3 Communications announced dark fiber and associated services agreements valued at more than $700 million in total.  McLeodUSA agreed to purchase additional network infrastructure from Level 3.  Under a renegotiated contract, XO Communications will buy fiber on Level 3's inter-city network in Western Europe; metropolitan fiber in Paris; and metro conduits in eight other European markets. Level 3 has now signed dark fiber contracts valued at more than $2 billion total with more than 45 companies in Europe and America during 2000.  Most contracts generally run for 15 to 20 years.  http://www.level3.com
Level 3 Communications, November 28, 2000

XO COMMUNICATIONS OUTLINES EUROPEAN BROADBAND STRATEGY
XO Communications (formerly NEXTLINK/Concentric) outlined plans to provide facilities-based, high bandwidth data services including global transit, transport, Gigabit Ethernet, VPN, wave length services, and shared and managed hosting services in Western Europe.  The company has revised the terms of XO's European network purchase, including the reduction of its payments to Level 3 to $163 million from the previously announced $306 million, in exchange for a reduction of network facilities received. XO will receive rights to use empty fiber conduits for future network deployment in Berlin, Dusseldorf, Hamburg and Munich.  It will also have empty fiber conduits in London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Brussels and dark fibers in Paris. XO will also receive 24 state-of-the-art fibers to connect its metro European networks in five countries with more than a terabit of initial capacity.  The company has provisionally been awarded fixed wireless spectrum licenses in the UK, including licenses covering the Greater London, Greater Manchester and Birmingham / West Midlands regions.  Commercial services are slated for the second half of 2001.  http://www.xo.com/news/49.html
XO Communications, November 28, 2000

NET2PHONE ROUTES ITS BILLIONTH IP TELEPHONY MINUTE
Net2Phone routed its one billionth minute of IP telephony traffic.  The company's daily traffic load has risen from 2 million minutes daily three months ago to 8 million minutes on November 27^th.  http://www.net2phone.com
Net2Phone, November 28, 2000

CABLELABS RELEASES PACKETCABLE SPECIFICATIONS FOR INTERDOMAIN SERVICES
Cable Television Laboratories (CableLabs) released several new PacketCable interim specifications for delivering advanced, real-time multimedia services over two-way cable plants.  The new PacketCable interdomain specifications describe call signaling, quality-of-service (QoS), and event messaging extensions over IP backbones. The interdomain capability will enable the establishment of end-to-end multimedia IP sessions between subscribers on different cable networks.  Future additions to the PacketCable specifications will define protocol support for enhanced capabilities, such as multimedia conferencing and interactive gaming.  The PacketCable 1.0 interim specifications are publicly available at the following URL.  http://www.packetcable.com/specifications.html
CableLabs, November 28, 2000

OPTICAL INTERNETWORKING FORUM ELECTS BOARD MEMBERS, FORMS CARRIER WORKING GROUP, ADVANCES OC-768 SPECS
The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) introduced its newly elected board of directors and announced a new working group of carrier companies to assist in the development of the User Network Interface (UNI) 1.0.  The OIF also reported significant progress by the OC-768 task groups towards defining requirements for electrical interfaces and very short reach optical interfaces; specifically, the definition of typical usage scenarios for very short reach optical interfaces at OC-768.  Members of the OIF Board of Directors include:

• OIF president and chairman: Adam Dunstan, vice president of technology at Avici Systems
  
• OIF vice president: Sid Chaudhuri, director of network architecture at Tellium
  
• OIF treasurer and secretary: Carol Sensale-Aiello, vice president of network management at Iris Labs
  
• OIF vice president of marketing: Andrew Greenfield, solutions manager at Cisco Systems
  
• OIF board member: Robert Tkach, chief technical officer at Celion Networks
  
• OIF board member: Sam Halabi, member of the office of the CTO at Extreme Networks
  
• OIF board member: Mike Ahdieh, senior manager, optical Internet architecture at Nortel Networks

http://www.oiforum.com/
OIF, November 28, 2000

BROADCOM TO ACQUIRE VISIONTECH FOR ITS MPEG-2 CHIPS
Broadcom will acquire VisionTech, a developer of MPEG-2 compression and decompression chips, for 7.96 million shares (valued at $772 million, based on closing share prices on Nov. 27).  VisionTech's latest MPEG-2 video/audio encoder chip has been selected for set-top boxes designed by Motorola Broadband Communications Sector (formerly General Instrument), Scientific-Atlanta, Pace, Microsoft WebTV, as well as Replay TV.   VisionTech is based in Herzliya, Israel.  http://www.broadcom.com  http://www.visiontech-dml.com
Broadcom, November 28, 2000

CISCO SYSTEMS INTRODUCES ENTERPRISE IP PHONES
Cisco Systems introduced several IP telephone models for use over enterprise IP networks.  The Cisco IP Conference Station 7935 ($1,195) is an IP-based full duplex hands-free conference station that can be attached to a Catalyst 10/100 Ethernet switch port with an RJ-45 connection.  The unit configures itself to the IP network via the Dynamic Host Control Protocol (DHCP), and then dynamically registers to Cisco's CallManager for connection services, receives the appropriate end point phone number and any software enhancements or personalized settings which are pre-loaded within Cisco's CallManager.  The Cisco IP Phone 7940 ($545) is a second-generation, full-featured IP phone for low to medium traffic users that auto configures itself with the Cisco CallManager and can also utilize Cisco's In-line power capabilities from a Catalyst switch.  The Cisco DPA 7630 Voice Mail Gateway ($6,995) allows legacy voice mail equipment to connect to the Cisco CallManager or to be shared between the Cisco CallManager and the private branch exchange (PBX).  http://www.cisco.com
Cisco Systems, November 28, 2000

DIGITAL ISLAND AWARDED US PATENT FOR CONTENT-AWARE ROUTING
Digital Island was awarded a US patent for its method of optimizing the routing of content and transactions over the Internet based on the location of an end-user.  The company's technique builds a geographic atlas of the Internet to link IP addresses to countries.  Digital Island's TraceWare service leverages the geographic atlas in real-time to enable applications requiring country-specific intelligence, including digital rights management, geographic ad insertion and protection against credit card fraud.  http://www.digitalisland.net
Digital Island, November 28, 2000

INTEGRATED MICROMACHINES RAISES $45 MILLION FOR ITS 2ND GENERATION MEMS
Integrated Micromachines Inc., a start-up based in Pasadena, California, secured $45 million in equity financing to support its development of small-scale 2D optical switches and carrier-class 3D optical cross-connect subsystems.  The company is working on a 2nd-generation proprietary MEMS technology, based on single-crystal silicon micro-machining and electromagnetic actuation, that could be used for an extremely low insertion loss (less than 3 dB) 3D architecture.  A major telecom equipment manufacturer is among the company's strategic investors.  Additional investors include Invesco Private Capital, Adams Capital Management, SunAmericaVenture, Venture TDF, United Overseas Bank of Singapore and Falcon/Hallador Ventures.  The company now has over 100 employees and is completing renovation on a 70,000 square foot industrial facility in Monrovia, California.  http://www.micromachines.com/
Integrated Micromachines, November 28, 2000

• Integrated Micromachines was founded in July 1995 to commercialize MEMS technology pioneered and patented at UCLA and Caltech.

RHYTHMS RAISES $50 MILLION IN VENDOR FINANCING, DEFERS DIVIDENDS TO FUND ROLLOUT
Rhythms NetConnections obtained an additional $50 million of vendor lease financing for the continued rollout of its DSL network.  The company also elected to defer payment of its $5.1 million quarterly dividend on its 6.75$ Series F Cumulative Convertible Preferred Stock.  The recent decline in the price of Rhythms' common stock would have required the company to sell approximately 4 million common shares to pay the $5.1 million quarterly dividend.  The company said it has sufficient cash to fund its operational needs through the end of 2001. http://www.rhythms.com/news/news.cfm
Rhythms NetConnections, November 28, 2000

ADC REPORTS SALES OF $1.03 BILLION, UP 63%
ADC reported record quarterly sales of $1.03 billion, up 63% over the $634 million in the comparable quarter of 1999.  Net income was $87 million, or $0.11 per share.  The results reflect 102% growth in the company's Broadband Connectivity sales combined with 22% growth in Broadband Access and Transport sales and 48% growth in its Integrated Solutions sales.  ADC said "communications service providers are increasing capital expenditures on the last mile/kilometer of their networks to deliver broadband services to consumers and businesses."  http://www.adc.com
ADC, November 28, 2000

BROADCOM SAMPLES ALL-CMOS BLUETOOTH RADIO CHIP
Broadcom introduced a Bluetooth radio and two Bluetooth baseband processors for short-reach wireless connectivity.  The new Blutonium chips are designed in digital CMOS and exceed Bluetooth 1.1 specifications.  Broadcom said its BCM2001 Bluetooth radio chip is designed to work particularly well in the crowded 2.4GHz band which could experience high levels of interference in the future from other radio devices such as cordless phones, wireless LANs and other similar devices.  http://www.broadcom.com/
Broadcom, November 28, 2000