MFS Communications Ltd has inaugurated its UK operations and announced commercial availability of its fibre optic network covering the City of London and the Docklands. The 17-mile network, targeted at business users, cost it #17m and currently has 70 City customers. MFS Ltd’s parent company, MFS Communications Co Inc, currently has 24 Metropolitan Area Networks […]
MFS Communications Ltd has inaugurated its UK operations and announced commercial availability of its fibre optic network covering the City of London and the Docklands. The 17-mile network, targeted at business users, cost it #17m and currently has 70 City customers. MFS Ltd’s parent company, MFS Communications Co Inc, currently has 24 Metropolitan Area Networks in operation or under construction, and plans expansion to 75 metropolitan areas within five years, including 10 international financial centres. MFS Ltd marked the launch with what it believes was the world’s first all fibre optic transatlantic videoconference, using the competetive access connections and Asynchronous Transfer Mode switching of sister company MFS Datanet. The demonstration used a PictureTel Inc compressed video system running over two 384Kbps fibre lines, using Constant Bit Rate, with General Datacomm Industries Inc Apex Asynchronous Transfer switches at either end. MFS rolled out the big guns for the launch as Sir Bryan Carsberg, Director General of Fair Trading for the UK and former director general of the Office of Telecommunications, and the Honourable Reed Hundt, who is chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, discussed the state of competition in the global telecommunications markets.
