CTC Gets $11.6 Million OC-3 from Level 3, NEON

Waltham, MA-based CTC Communications has assembled an OC-3 backbone with capacity from Level 3 Communications LLC and NorthEast Optic Network Inc. (NEON). CTC will lay out $11.6 million for the facilities over three years, securing itself options to scale up capacity and renew the contracts for another three years.

CTC will use the capacity and co-location facilities for its buildout in New England and New York, connecting its 22 hub sites and two redundant network operations centers with three SONET rings in the southern, western, and eastern regions of New England.

The company characterizes the deals as a step toward becoming a facilities-based, integrated services provider that transports its services with Internet protocol.

It began deploying Cisco wide area IP+ATM switches in Dec. 1998 and expects to have its initial hub sites installed and interconnected by the end of March. Beginning in Apr., CTC will transition its customers on-net for full beta testing, then plans to bring on its broader customer later in the summer.