Williams buys up CoreExpress
 
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Williams Communications has announced it will buy the assets of financially troubled start-up CoreExpress, whose CoreExpress Extranet service is based in part on a fiber backbone leased from Williams.
Williams did not reveal how much it is paying for CoreExpress' network, but says it was interested in purchasing CoreExpress primarily for the company's Extranet Viewer technology, which enables users to monitor their service provider's performance. In addition, the hardware that drives CoreExpress' network is compatible with Williams'.
CoreExpress' Extranet, scheduled to be available in January, is designed to securely link separate enterprises via Internet connections provided by multiple ISPs.
CoreExpress hooks its network directly into the access networks of four major ISPs - AT&T, Genuity, Sprint and WorldCom. It measures delay across these access networks, adds to it the delay across its own Multi-protocol Label Switching-based backbone, and offers its customers service-level agreements guaranteeing that end-to-end delay will stay below 150 msec.
To monitor the Extranet service, the company places PC-based probes at customer sites and monitors performance via the Extranet Viewer software.
CoreExpress cut staff twice this year in an effort to slow the depletion of its venture funding and to make it more attractive to potential investors in another round of financing. It had a total of $693 million in backing, including vendor financing of equipment and cash.
The company also trimmed back its planned network from 22,000 miles to 15,000 miles, reduced the number of fibers it would use from 5 to one, and abandoned plans to sell bandwidth wholesale.
CoreExpress ties its network together with a combination of Cisco and Juniper access routers, Cisco core routers and Sycamore Networks optical gear.
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