The largest fibre optic network in Europe will be supported
until 1st July 2002 following an announcement last night that the
trustees of the bankrupt company KPNQwest have raised sufficient
cash to avoid a network shutdown, according to a report by
FT.com.12 Jun 2002
Last Thursday, the trustees appealed to the company’s corporate customers to pay their bills. There was a risk of losing their internet traffic if the network was shutdown before customers had migrated their business to other providers. It is hoped that the stay of execution will provide sufficient time for the migration and/or the sale of the network by the trustees.
FT.com reports that one of the company’s two founders, Dutch telco KPN, offered to pay €8 million to keep the network alive. The other founder was US company Qwest.