Broadband communications provider Williams Communications Inc. said it will deliver to Web portal concern Yahoo Inc.
what it calls a “local-to-national-to- local optical Gigabit Ethernet service.”
Yahoo will use the Williams Communications network to deliver data and video services, officials said in a statement. In addition, the companies agreed to collaborate on the development of Williams Communications’ wide-area Gigabit Ethernet service, which will be generally available to the market in first quarter 2002.
Financial terms of the agreement were not revealed, officials said.
Williams’ Gig-E service lets its customers tie their networks directly into Williams Communications’ national fiber-optic network. Because the service eliminates the complex interfaces and gateways that come with legacy network connectivity, Williams said its customers will be able to remove the costs associated with deploying this equipment while more efficiently managing their bandwidth.
Williams’ network connects 125 cities in the U.S. and five continents worldwide.
“This agreement with Williams Communications will provide tremendous opportunities to increase our delivery efficiency and improve the viewing or listening experience for the 210 million consumers that look to Yahoo! for entertainment and information,” said Darin Divinia, Yahoo Broadcast Services’ director of network operations, in a statement. “This marks the next evolution of our network and enhances our ability to serve existing and future relationships with leading ISP’s whose users are hungry for Yahoo! content.”
Last Friday, Williams said it signed a purchase agreement to buy certain parts of CoreExpress, a Herndon, Va.-based data-services provider.
Terms of the agreement, the financial details of which were not released, call for Williams to buy CoreExpress’ fiber-optic network, intellectual property and Internet protocol capabilities. Closing on the agreement is subject to satisfaction of final terms and certain conditions, officials said.
Related Story:
Williams Buying CoreExpress’ Core
Bob Woods is the managing editor of OpticallyNetworked.com.
Williams Says “Yahoo!”
