Global Crossing Expands Pan European Network; Secures Additional Rights of Way

Hamilton, Bermuda-based Global Crossing Ltd. will be adding an eastern ring of six new cities, including Berlin, Munich, and Stuttgart, to its previously announced Pan European network. The company also announced that it has contracted to secure rights-of-way and conduits for four key routes for the Pan European Crossing system in France, adding approximately 1,300 km to routes already in place.

In Great Britain, Global Crossing will award construction on certain key routes to McNicholas Construction Co. Ltd., which will secure rights of way and build conduits for Global Crossing in the UK. Global Crossing has also reached agreement in principle with various providers of conduits on its remaining routes in the UK.

Major Cities of Europe
Global Crossing's Pan European Crossing system will feature more than 600,000 km of fiber, stretched over a geographic route of 11,000 km, linking 24 major metropolitan centers in Europe to Global Crossing's worldwide fiber network. Global Crossing has previously announced contracts for rights-of-way and conduits in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

Pan European Crossing is being developed in several phases, initially providing connectivity among 19 cities in 1999: London, Paris, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Brussels, Hamburg, Hanover, Dusseldorf, Cologne, Frankfurt, Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, Nuremburg, Munich, Stuttgart, Strasbourg, and Copenhagen.

In the year 2000, planned expansions of the network will include connections to Lyon, Marseilles, Turin, Milan, and Zurich. Additional network expansion may extend the Pan European Crossing network to Rome, Barcelona, Madrid, Vienna, and major cities in Scandinavia, eastern Europe, and Russia.

Global Crossing also has projects underway to construct undersea optical fiber communication systems interconnecting Asia, Latin America, and the US, as well as a terrestrial network in Japan.

French routes to Belgium and Germany
Muller Travaux Publics S.A. is the contractor on the first three of the French routes. Alcatel Contracting S.A. is Global Crossing's contractor for the fourth French route described below. The contracts provide for rights-of- way and construction of conduits for delivery on set dates at fixed prices. These newly secured routes complete the network in northern France, connecting three points of presence in Paris to London, Brussels, and major cities in Germany:

• Paris City Ring, including Roissy, La Defense and La Bourse
• Paris to Kortrijk, linking France to Belgium
• Paris to Strasbourg, linking France to Germany
• Paris to Calais via Veules les Roses, linking Paris to the French Coast
• Eastern ring extends reach in Germany

Global Crossing has also announced a new eastern ring in Germany, which will add six cities to the Pan European Crossing network: Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig, Nuremberg, Munich, and Stuttgart. Service to these cities is projected to begin by December 1999.

Lucent supplies fiber-optic technology
Under a supply contract for Pan European Crossing, Lucent Technologies, Inc., will provide Global Crossing with its industry-leading optical network systems, such as Lucent's 80-channel WaveStar dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) systems and the WaveStar Bandwidth Manager. Also included is Lucent's state-of-the-art G655 fiber. Under a broad agreement, signed in January, Lucent will provide Global Crossing priority access to the most advanced technologies available from Lucent and Bell Labs for both subsea and terrestrial fiber optic systems.