CENIC Recognizes CenturyLink for Supporting High-Speed Broadband for Research & Education Community

CENIC announces recipient of 2019 Innovations in Networking Award for Corporate Partner

La Mirada, CA & Berkeley, CA -- March 13, 2019 -- For committing to support CENIC and understanding the importance of high-speed broadband for the research and education communities in California, CenturyLink is being recognized with CENIC’s 2019 Innovations in Networking Award for Corporate Partner.

CenturyLink staff being recognized are: Stan Aschenbrenner, account director; Lynda Santoro, director of research and education; and Craig Cupach, director of sales.

CenturyLink and its optical fiber infrastructure support the network that CENIC operates to provide high-speed broadband to more than 20 million users, including the vast majority of K-20 students together with educators, researchers, and others at vital public-serving institutions.

CENIC and CenturyLink (formerly Level 3 Communications) have partnered on numerous initiatives since 2002, when CENIC became the first education and research network to acquire fiber to operate its own network. Over time, Level 3 had acquired a number of companies from which CENIC originally had obtained fiber rights, in addition to those owned by Level 3. This award is being given to recognize the completion of a fiber agreement extension project that took three years and spanned a period when Level 3 was merging with CenturyLink, which added complexity to an already considerable undertaking. Differences in naming of fiber segments, language and terms of agreements, and record keeping and billing had to be resolved to extend the original rights agreements. Both CENIC and CenturyLink staff had to wade through an immense amount of historical documentation to arrive at a renewed agreement and recently signed amendments. The project resulted in executing agreements to extend CENIC’s fiber leases, called Indefeasible Rights of Use (IRUs), until 2040.

CenturyLink's network continues to deliver the performance and capacity necessary to support California's technology-enabled research and education activities. CENIC’s purpose has always been to connect its members via robust and high-capacity fiber to the California Research and Education Network, so that the community CENIC was created to serve can leverage the benefits of advanced networking. “CenturyLink and Level 3 have been a valuable part of this effort, with staff working hard to find creative ways to meet CENIC’s unique needs,” said Louis Fox, CENIC’s president and CEO.

The CENIC Innovations in Networking Awards are presented each year at CENIC’s annual conference to highlight exemplary people, projects, and organizations that leverage high-bandwidth networking. The CENIC conference will be held March 18 – 20, 2019, in San Diego, California. Learn more and register to attend.

©2024 Pacific Wave. The Pacific Wave International Research and Education Exchange is a project jointly operated by the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) & Pacific Northwest Gigapop (PNWGP).