KPN starts new business with KPNQwest assets

A new Koninklijke KPN NV business unit will offer international data and IP services to large companies in the Netherlands using the networks KPN acquired from bankrupt KPNQwest NV, KPN said Tuesday.

Four years, an ugly bankruptcy and a €700 million ($705 million) write-off after forming new-economy highflier KPNQwest with Qwest, KPN again controls the networks it brought into the joint venture. The networks are now part of a new KPN unit that will operate “by the laws of the old economy,” KPN executives said in a meeting with press here.

In stages over the past months, KPN of The Hague, Netherlands, bought the German, Belgian and Dutch parts of the KPNQwest network, as well as undersea links to London from Paris and Amsterdam, and capacity on an undersea cable from Europe to the U.S. that belonged to the joint venture with Qwest of Denver.

To complete what KPN calls its EuroRings, the Dutch carrier also bought networks in France and the U.K. from another, undisclosed party, the company said.

KPN’s new business unit will offer IP VPN, wavelength and ATM services, among other services, KPN said in a statement. KPN itself will be one of the unit’s largest customers. The phone company will route its voice and data traffic over the networks, it said.

KPNQwest of Hoofddorp, Netherlands, was declared bankrupt in May. Since then parts of the one-time stock market darling have been sold at fire-sale prices, and KPNQwest’s office inventory has been auctioned off.