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Sprint Completes Large Metro Network in Bay Area

Posted on: Monday, 20 October 2003, 06:00 CDT

OVERLAND PARK, Kan., Oct. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Sprint today announced it has begun routing voice and data traffic on three additional large fiber-optic rings throughout the San Francisco and Oakland metro areas, San Jose and many surrounding communities throughout Silicon Valley. The three metro area network (MAN) rings combine with two existing area rings, which were deployed last year, to enhance communications network reliability and monitoring capabilities to area customers.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20001013/SPRINTLOGO )

The five wireline fiber-optic rings connect the Sprint network to several local telecom exchange points of presence and end offices -- the last stop before communications traffic travels to customer premises. In addition, the metro network connects to several Sprint mobile switching centers, which route wireless calls for local PCS customers of Sprint.

The five rings total 189 miles and position the Sprint all-digital, fiber- optic network closer to Bay Area businesses and consumers, enabling them to benefit from the latest Sprint network characteristics and technologies. In addition to several areas of the San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose metro areas, the rings also go through Brisbane, Fremont, Milpitas, Mountain View, Oakland, Palo Alto, Redwood City, San Bruno, San Carlos, Santa Clara and Sunnyvale.

The deployment of the Bay Area network is part of a nationwide Sprint initiative to broaden the company'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, decreasing its use of incumbent local exchange carriers in these areas.

"Customers want communications companies to be the guardians of their traffic from end-to-end as much as possible," said Jim Patterson, Sprint vice president of Carrier, Access & Wholesale Markets. "This new network will enable Sprint to bring its industry-leading record of reliability and other benefits much closer to customers in the Bay Area."

The ring architecture being deployed by Sprint 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.

About Sprint

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 communications services in 39 states and the District of Columbia and operates the largest 100-percent digital, nationwide PCS wireless network in the United States. For more information, visit http://www.sprint.com/ .

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION

This news release includes certain forward-looking statements. Future performance cannot be ensured. Actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. The words "estimate,""project,""intend,""could,""expect,""believe" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. You should not place undue reliance on forward- looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this news release. Sprint is not obligated to publicly release any revisions to forward-looking statements to reflect events after the date of this news release or unforeseen events. Sprint provides detailed discussions of risk factors in their periodic SEC filings.