Sprint Commits to Major International Expansion

[London, ENGLAND] Global communications company Sprint
outlined its international strategy Tuesday, saying it
is committed to expanding its Internet backbone in both
Europe and Asia.

Sprint confirmed that London will be the location of
its European headquarters, from which it will control
a new pan-European IP network. It says it will be the
first major telecommunications player to connect key
business centers in Europe with a 10 Gbps backbone.

Massively increasing its Internet capabilities, Sprint
plans to connect 15 cities in 13 European and Asian
countries to its global IP network by the end of 2001,
and 35 countries by the end of 2003. This will enable
it to serve most of the world’s Internet market.

The European cities in Sprint’s initial phase are:
Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Milan, Brussels, Stockholm,
Copenhagen, Dublin, Hamburg, and Munich. In the Asia
Pacific region it will connect Sydney, Singapore, Tokyo
and Hong Kong.

Len Lauer, president of Sprint’s Global Business Markets
Group, said the global investment strategy will allow
Sprint to provide a single point of contact for its
multinational customers, as well as allowing it to serve
new customers in strong European and Asian markets.

“Our global IP network expansion is in line with the
goal to have 50 per cent of Sprint’s world-wide revenues
derived from data and broadband services by 2003,” said
Lauer.

Sprint already offers global IP services through
agreements with international partners. It says it
will continue to provide global telecom services to
multi-national companies based in the U.S., using
the existing network.

Some of the expanded network capacity will come from
two new international cable systems, eastbound TAT 14
and westbound Japan/U.S., in which Sprint has an
investment. In fact, Sprint has shares in most of the
major public undersea cable systems through which it
links its IP network to its U.S. Tier 1 Internet backbone.

Last year, Sprint began expanding its global workforce,
a process that will continue through 2001.

A snapshot of Sprint’s current trading shows it has
over 20 million business and residential customers
and earns around US $23 billion in annual revenues.

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