Metropolitan Fiber Systems

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article related to telecommunication is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Metropolitan Fiber Systems Inc, later known as MFS Communications Company, was a last mile provider of business grade telecomunication products such as long distance, and Internet access through its own fiber rings in major central business districts throughout North America and Europe. MFS had three divisions; MFS Telecom: Access, MFS DataNet: X.25, Frame and ATM, and MFS Intelinet: Local and Long Distance voice. MFS purchased UUNET in 1996 and was acquired by WorldCom soon after. With the newly acquired assets, WorldCom became a powerhouse in the late 1990s but fell into financial issues due to bad management from WorldCom executives. The majority of the Legacy MFS Executives (through the help of Kiewit and other investors) started another company, Level 3 Communications. MFS was well known as the first major CLEC bypassing ILEC connections and their high prices^[1]. It was one of the first CLECs.

[edit] MFS History

In 1986, a group of Chicago entrepreneurs got together and convinced their city to let them lay fiber optic cables in abandoned coal tunnels. The idea was to connect the big financial centers directly to MCI, AT&T and Sprint. “Alternative access” was what they called it and T1s are what they sold. Prior to this alternative, the IXCs and their customers had only one way to connect to one another–Illinois Bell.

CFO Corp hired Kiewitt Construction to build the network. A rather young and ambitious group manager from Kiewitt won the business. His name was Jim Crowe. All looked fine until it came time for CFO to pay the bill. It turned out fiber construction and electronics were expensive, building access was hard, and T1s were few and far between. No worries, Crowe concluded, he’ll convince Kiewitt they should buy Chicago Fiber Optics. Thus was born Metropolitan Fiber Systems, later shortened to MFS Communications.

MFS self-built most of their networks. They did, however, acquire a few smaller networks along the way, including ICC in Washington DC and Northeast Networks in White Plains. (Readers, please point out other fiber co acquisitions.) By the time MFS sold to Worldcom in 1997, MFS’s networks spanned the U.S. and Western Europe.

How much ... was spent by MFS? Let’s say$2B.^[2]