Carrier1 To Build Milan City Network

[London, ENGLAND] European telecoms and Internet service provider
Carrier1 International S.A.
announced Wednesday that it will build a 100-kilometer, high-capacity
fiber network for the city of Milan in Italy.

Carrier1 said it hoped to complete the first phase of the project — a
56-kilometer stretch — within a year. This will enable
interconnections between major data centers, carriers and
access nodes to the Milan network, with consequent cost-savings
for Carrier1’s customers.

The agreement with the city of Milan follows similar projects
in Amsterdam, Holland, where Carrier1 is building a
120-kilometer-long network, and in Paris, France, where it
is constructing a 32-kilometer ring.

Sebastiano Galantucci, managing director of Carrier1 Italy, said
that the Milan fiber-optic infrastructure would be a strategic
asset for the whole community.

“As in the past, we will use only a part of the infrastructure
for our own business objectives; the rest will be `swapped’
with other providers for the use of similar assets in Milan
or in other European cities,” said Galantucci.

Carrier1 is developing many major telecom and IT centers
through its DigiPlex joint venture. It plans to link
them by building 20 city rings across Europe by the
end of 2001.

Gene Rizzo, vice president of sales and marketing at
Carrier1, said the market in Italy was growing rapidly
and there were plenty of growth opportunities for both
existing carriers and new entrants.

“Through the combination of our Milan city ring, our
Milan Point of Presence (PoP), and a new PoP in Rome,
we intend to develop mutually beneficial, long-term
partnerships with Italian carriers all across Italy,”
said Rizzo.

Headquartered in Switzerland, Carrier1 is listed on the
Neuer Markt in Frankfurt and on the NASDAQ in New York.