Qwest Announces Significant Expansion of Ethernet Services

Qwest Communications (NYSE: Q) today announced a significant expansion of its global Ethernet services portfolio. The services enable business customers in more markets to scale their bandwidth needs and use the flexibility of Ethernet to transmit data between multiple locations. Qwest rolled out Ethernet service in 759 new cities this year, bringing its total number of U.S. cities served to 1,129. Qwest also offers Ethernet connectivity in 6 of the 137 international countries it serves. Qwest is providing increased availability and new speed options to more customers, as it deploys deeper and more broadly into key business centers.

"Ethernet is growing rapidly as a networking solution because it's scalable for many different businesses and industries,” said Eric Bozich, vice president of Product Management for Qwest. "Whether it is across town or across the globe, customers want secure broadband solutions that use only the necessary bandwidth and can grow along with their business. Our flexible Ethernet options allow customers to tailor their connectivity needs and get a ton of performance and reliability for a relatively low cost.”

Qwest’s enhanced Ethernet service portfolio is expanding quickly to meet the growing Ethernet demand -- both nationally and globally. Qwest Ethernet services utilize the company's local, metropolitan, national and international assets to securely and reliably connect multiple business locations across a metro area or around the world. Combining Qwest’s Ethernet and optical technologies to offer ubiquitous Ethernet service provides customers with scalable, secure bandwidth at a relatively low cost to fit metro-area and long-haul networking needs.

"We have customers in seven time zones spread over three countries equaling 37.5 million people to connect with,” said Adam Howell, director of Networks and IT Operations at Synacor. Synacor builds Internet tools and portals that simplify the way consumers get their digital media and uses Qwest Ethernet services for its new video platform and growing customer base. "As we continue to expand, we know that Qwest will be able to meet our bandwidth requirements and provide a stable network for our business. We trust Qwest to deliver our end product worldwide.”

"Qwest’s underlying strategy is to offer customers a range of options, allowing them to select the solution that best meets their needs. Additionally, they are positioning their products to be easy to use, easy to manage and monitor, and flexible,” said IDC analyst Rena Bhattacharyya. "They are seeing the service gain traction in multiple vertical markets, including education, public schools, state and local government, manufacturing and healthcare.”

Qwest's Expanding Ethernet Services Portfolio

Qwest provides Ethernet services over SONET, Wavelengths and Native Ethernet to fit varying data requirements of enterprise and SMB customers. Qwest's Ethernet expansion is driving its key Ethernet services deeper into target markets and providing new options, speeds and flexibility to new customers. The Ethernet expansion includes metro-area and long-haul optical Ethernet and Ethernet Private Line services.

The Qwest Ethernet portfolio offers a wide range of speeds – 5 Mbps to 10 Gbps – and the scalability to accommodate the heavy bandwidth users who require full-time, dedicated or shared point-to-point, and multi-point transport wide area networking and metro area networking (MAN) services, giving customers real choice. Qwest’s Ethernet services footprint, which will continue to be extended, integrates Layer 1, Layer 2 and Layer 3 Ethernet services for metro, national and international needs.

Qwest’s Ethernet service portfolio is backed by Qwest’s Quality of Service (QoS) functionality and service level agreements (SLAs) to give customers assurance of application integrity and optimized performance in their networks. Individual Ethernet services are covered by QoS and/or SLAs. More information on the Ethernet portfolio is available at on the Qwest Ethernet product page at Qwest.com.

About Qwest

Customers coast to coast turn to Qwest's industry-leading national fiber-optic network and world-class Spirit of Service to meet their communications and entertainment needs. For residential customers, Qwest’s powerful combination of award-winning high-speed Internet, home and wireless voice solutions and digital TV includes a new generation of fiber-optic Internet services. Qwest is also the choice of 95 percent of Fortune 500 companies, offering a full suite of network, data and voice services for small businesses, large businesses, government agencies and wholesale customers. Additionally, Qwest participates in Networx, the largest communications services contract in the world, and is recognized as a leader in the network services market by a leading technology industry analyst firm.

The marks that comprise the Qwest logo are registered trademarks of Qwest Communications International Inc. in the U.S. and certain other countries.