BROOMFIELD, Colo. -- Level 3 Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq:LVLT) today announced that it has launched a new technical field support service for its colocation and dark fiber customers in the U.S. and Europe.

Called (3)TechSM, the new service takes advantage of Level 3’s world-class field service organization to satisfy customers’ critical network maintenance requirements. The services are provided exclusively by Level 3 technicians 24 hours a day across the entire Level 3 network footprint, including on-net customer-controlled facilities. (3)Tech service is available in hundreds of facilities in more than 70 cities.

A European PTT and the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) are among the initial customers of the (3)Tech service.

“We believe that (3)Tech represents a significant shift in the way network service providers deliver technical field support to colocation and dark fiber customers,” said Steve Liddell, senior vice president of Transport and Infrastructure Services for Level 3.

“Unlike typical third-party services, the (3)Tech service reduces network maintenance costs because it’s a pay-by-the-hour solution that leverages Level 3’s unmatched field service organization to meet customers’ network maintenance requirements around the clock,” added Liddell. “As a result, we think the (3)Tech service will become a key competitive advantage for Level 3 in much the same way that ONTAPSM and our softswitch-based data and voice platform have.”

CENIC, a (3)Tech, dark fiber and colocation customer, is a not-for-profit corporation that represents the common interests of California's higher education academic and research communities in achieving robust, high capacity Internet communications services.

“We selected Level 3 as our field services provider because of the company’s competitive pricing, service availability in all our required geographical areas, and the broad services Level 3 offers,” said Jim Dolgonas, chief operations officer for CENIC. “Level 3 was uniquely positioned to offer a support program that allows us to streamline and strengthen, in a very cost effective manner, the management of network operations for our statewide education and research network.”

Level 3 Communications Inc.