Lightyear Chooses Level 3 VoIP Solution for Phone Services

September 2, 2004 - (HostReview.com) - Level 3 Communications, Inc. (www.Level3.com) today announced that Lightyear Network Solutions, LLC signed an agreement to use Level 3 voice services that will enable Lightyear to deliver a new suite of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) business and residential phone services.

Lightyear purchased Level 3's (3)VoIP Enhanced Local service to support its Lightyear XSTREAMSM products, a new suite of services that will be sold to residential and business customers through Lightyear's authorized agents and representatives. Lightyear also purchased (3)VoIPSM Local Inbound service.

"Lightyear is poised to lead the industry in providing IP centric telephony solutions," said Bruce Widener, Lightyear's senior vice president of corporate development. "As the premier provider of highly reliable underlying VoIP services, Level 3 is the right partner to enable us to quickly and cost effectively become a leading provider of business and residential phone services."

With (3)VoIP Enhanced Local service, Lightyear can offer full-featured, cost-effective, high-quality local and long distance telephone service - including 911 and E911 - to businesses and residences. Lightyear customers who buy a bundled phone package that includes a high-speed DSL connection can make and receive phone calls using existing analog touchtone telephones or digital IP telephones - eliminating the need to purchase traditional telephone service.

"We're pleased that customers such as Lightyear are building and selling innovative phone services like Lightyear XSTREAM utilizing VoIP solutions from Level 3," said Donna Lachance, senior vice president of Softswitch Services for Level 3. "The new Lightyear suite of phone services underscores the value that (3)VoIP Enhanced Local and (3)VoIP Local Inbound services offers our customers."

The E911 feature is Level 3's enhanced 911 service, which adds further value to its VoIP services such as (3)VoIP Enhanced Local. E911 automatically associates a caller's number with the caller's location, and automatically connects the call to the closest Public Service Access Point.