History

Level 3 was founded in 1985 as Kiewit Diversified Group, a subsidiary of Peter Kiewit Sons' Incorporated; the company was created to handle the Kiewit assets not related to construction and coal mining. On January 19, 1998, the company changed its name to Level 3 Communications. Two months later, Level 3 became an independent company.

Network

Level 3 operates one of the largest backbone networks of any Internet service provider. Interconnections between major cities are done via one or more OC-192 links, which provide 10 Gbit/s of bandwidth. Its network covers the continental US, and most of Western Europe. Level 3 maintains 60 Gbit/s of trans-Atlantic bandwidth via 6 OC-192 circuits, linking the two halves of its network.

Level 3's primary focus is selling service to organizations with large bandwidth requirements, such as telecoms carriers, cable TV operators, universities, web hosting companies, and to other, smaller ISPs, often known as Tier 2 carriers. They also provide specialized services for businesses, such as VPN, metro ethernet, and voice services.

Level 3 owns a large amount of dark fiber. It occasionally leases this fiber out to other providers who wish to operate their own backbones between cities.