5:55 PM -- What a day for Level 3 Communications Inc. (NYSE: LVLT). It ended the day seeing its stock rise nearly 23 percent -- one of the biggest single-day gains ever for the company. (See Level 3 Surges on Positive Outlook.) The company would probably tell you they knew this day would come all along. (See Level 3 Stays the Course.) The question is: Should we have seen this coming?

The headlines over the past few months have gone from bad to progressively better:

I'm not signing up for the Level 3 fan club just yet. There's still a lot of work to be done over there and the company itself admits there still could be some headaches over service installation bottlenecks. But a 23 percent gain has to bring some vindication to a company that has taken a lot of heat this past year.

— Raymond McConville, Reporter, Light Reading