Network World, 01/04/99

JAMES CROWE CEO, LEVEL 3 COMMUNICATIONS

Jim Crowe may not be as far along as rival Joe Nacchio, CEO of Qwest Communications, in building his next-generation national network, but he has become one of the most powerful figures in the new world of networking.

Crowe's Level 3 is building an end-to-end IP network that will - if everything goes according to plan - carry a big chunk of the converged voice and data traffic of tomorrow. Level 3 will build local networks in major U.S. cities and interconnect them over a fiber backbone, all at a cost of between $8 billion and $10 billion. Crowe's aim: to undercut entrenched carriers on price and gobble up big corporate users' rapidly growing data traffic.

Crowe figures his advantage is that he 's building Level 3's network, which won't be fully operational until at least 2001, from the ground up to support IP data packets. The incumbent telcos, on the other hand, are struggling to retrofit their circuit-switched systems to handle all the data flows. That means higher costs for them and plenty of opportunity for him.

Crowe is no newcomer to this game. He helped build MFS Communications into a powerful RBOC alternative for business users, then swallowed up Internet giant UUNET before the whole package was assimilated by Bernie Ebbers' WorldCom (now MCI WorldCom) for more than $14 billion. Wall Street loves the guy and Level 3 already has a market cap of nearly $11 billion, even though the company is unlikely to throw off any earnings for a good long time.

CROWE'S CHALLENGE: While Crowe may haunt the early- morning thoughts of AT&T's leaders and Bell executives, he has his own work cut out for him in 1999 and beyond: delivering on a promise big enough to get investors and everyone else so excited.

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