I just read a great post on the Telecom Straight Shooter blog about Level(3)’s business. Excerpt:
…all applications will originate and terminate in a metropolitan market with local access along with their associated revenues. Long haul pipes are in vast quantity with plenty of inventory buried in the ground. In all fairness, however, if you are going to build a long haul network, you don’t undergo the expense to put only one pipe in the ground.
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Metropolitan markets are 10x more expensive to build, operate and install than a long haul network. You actually require more fiber to be deployed in a metro setting in order to support stuffed, long haul dumb pipes from long haul networks dumping packets at a carrier hotel for metro distribution or third party interconnection facilities.
