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Adelphia Communications Selects Level 3 As Its Wholesale VoIP Services Provider for Residential Voice Offering

Posted on: Wednesday, 16 March 2005, 09:00 CST

BROOMFIELD, Colo., March 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Level 3 Communications, Inc. today announced that Adelphia Communications Corporation has selected Level 3 as its exclusive wholesale VoIP services provider for residential voice services that Adelphia expects to begin offering to customers in select markets in 2005.

Under the terms of the agreement, Level 3 will provide Adelphia with (3)VoIP Enhanced Local service, a wholesale residential voice solution that provides connectivity to the public switched telephone network and other enhanced features. Adelphia is the fifth-largest cable television company in the country, with approximately 5.2 million cable customers and 1.4 million high-speed Internet access customers in 31 states and Puerto Rico.

"This agreement with Level 3 allows Adelphia to bundle residential voice services with our existing suite of cable and Internet offerings without us incurring the costly expense of building out PSTN termination capability in LEC central offices," said Marwan Fawaz, CTO for Adelphia. "We chose to partner with Level 3 because the company provides carrier-quality, SIP-based wholesale voice services that accelerate our time to market. Level 3 has a proven, technically advanced IP network that will allow us to deliver digital phone services to our customers in a reliable and cost-effective manner."

"We're very pleased that Adelphia has chosen Level 3 to provide the wholesale building blocks for its new residential phone service," said Sureel Choksi, executive vice president for Level 3. "We look forward to working closely with Adelphia as the company adds high-quality digital phone services to its existing portfolio of video and broadband consumer services."

A recent survey* of more than 1,400 U.S. adults showed that 71 percent would consider moving to VoIP as an alternative to their current phone service. Nearly 73 percent of the surveyed respondents indicated that they would prefer to purchase VoIP as part of a bundle of telecommunications services. The most desirable bundle, according to the survey, was VoIP packaged with broadband.

(3)VoIP Enhanced Local Service

Level 3's (3)VoIP Enhanced Local service is a wholesale VoIP solution that enables companies who operate their own switching infrastructures to launch IP-based local and long-distance communications services to residential and business customers via any broadband connection. Level 3's proprietary softswitch platform makes the service efficient, enabling cable operators such as Adelphia to cost effectively speed their deployment of high-quality VoIP services.

(3)VoIP Enhanced Local provides the essential components required to offer high-quality VoIP services. These components include network trunking, local numbers, local number portability, the safety of E-911, operator assistance, directory listings, and directory assistance. At the same time, the (3)VoIP Enhanced Local solution allows Level 3 customers, such as Adelphia, to retain the flexibility to manage and control end-user features without the difficulties of implementing complex interconnection arrangements.

The E-911 feature is Level 3's enhanced 911 service, which adds further value to its broad suite of VoIP services. E-911 associates a caller's number with the caller's location and automatically connects the call to the closest Public Safety Access Point.

"Many of the companies that have begun to offer non-traditional communications services are taking shortcuts on 911 that could compromise public safety," said Myrle McNeal, vice president of Consumer Voice Services for Level 3. "Where available, Enhanced 911, or E-911, works just like the 911 service that Americans have come to trust for decades. Using Level 3's VoIP service, consumers can make an E-911 call and have the confidence that the emergency response team will arrive at their house and not at a house three streets or three states away."

Today, Level 3 offers a broad suite of wholesale IP-based voice solutions for the residential and business markets over a robust softswitch-based network platform that reaches approximately 93 percent of the U.S. population and carries more than 30 billion minutes of IP-based voice and data calls every month.

For more information about Level 3's portfolio of voice services, please visit http://www.level3.com/.

About Level 3 Communications

Level 3 is an international communications and information services company. The company operates one of the largest Internet backbones in the world, is one of the largest providers of wholesale dial-up service to ISPs in North America and is the primary provider of Internet connectivity for millions of broadband subscribers, through its cable and DSL partners. The company offers a wide range of communications services over its 23,000 mile broadband fiber optic network including Internet Protocol (IP) services, broadband transport and infrastructure services, colocation services, and patented Softswitch managed modem and voice services. Its Web address is http://www.level3.com/.

The company offers information services through its subsidiaries, Software Spectrum and (i)Structure. For additional information, visit their respective Web sites at http://www.softwarespectrum.com/ and http://www.i-structure.com/.

*The Level 3 VoIP Consumer Attitude & Usage Study was conducted by Marketing Advocates, Inc. (http://www.marketingadvocates.com/) in December 2004. A total of 1,402 adults completed the online survey. Results are accurate to within approximately + or - 4 percent at a 95 percent confidence level.

The Level 3 logo is a registered service mark and (3)VoIP Enhanced is a service mark of Level 3 Communications, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. (3)VoIP Enhanced Local service is offered by Level 3 Enhanced Services, LLC.

Forward Looking Statement

Some of the statements made by Level 3 in this press release are forward- looking in nature. Actual results may differ materially from those projected in forward-looking statements. Level 3 believes that its primary risk factors include, but are not limited to: changes in the overall economy relating to, among other things, the September 11 attacks and subsequent events, substantial capital requirements; development of effective internal processes and systems; the ability to attract and retain high quality employees; technology; the number and size of competitors in its markets; law and regulatory policy; and the mix of products and services offered in the company's target markets. Additional information concerning these and other important factors can be found within Level 3's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Statements in this release should be evaluated in light of these important factors.

Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/19990721/LVLTLOGOAP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org/PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com

Level 3 Communications, Inc.

CONTACT: media, Paul Lonnegren, +1-720-888-6099, or investors, RobinGrey, +1-720-888-2518, or Sandra Curlander, +1-720-888-2501, all of Level 3Communications, Inc.

Web site: http://www.marketingadvocates.com/

Web site: http://www.softwarespectrum.com/

Web site: http://www.i-structure.com/

Web site: http://www.level3.com/

Source: PRNewswire-FirstCall

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