The acquisition of Fibernet bolsters GCUK's reputation as the UK's leading alternative telecom provider and complements Global Crossing's strategy to focus on "Invest & Grow" segments that have driven the company's successful performance for the past seven quarters - IP, conferencing and carrier data. This acquisition unites two highly complementary businesses that share a common focus on providing complex managed services. It will provide them both a scale and market presence that neither of the two companies could have achieved alone.

The good news for customers and business partners is that Global Crossing has acquired Fibernet for all the right reasons.

Fibernet's customers will benefit from access to Global Crossing's secure, innovative IP services, a high level of expertise in managed services, and connectivity to 600 cities, 60 countries on six continents worldwide. GCUK not only can provide a global brand and product set to UK customers, it can meet their specific local requirements, as well.

This is a timely move for Global Crossing and GCUK. Ethernet WAN services are experiencing growing demand from enterprise customers and Fibernet is a leading provider of wide-area Ethernet services to large organizations and other service providers.

Fibernet also provides custom services to large enterprises with high-bandwidth needs, particularly in the financial services sector. For service provider customers, Fibernet focuses on voice interconnect and last-mile cost reduction; specializes in private managed optical networking services, and provides wholesale voice and data services, including Ethernet, managed optical, storage networking and IP/MPLS services, to service providers and carriers.