MFS Communications Company, Inc. (Metropolitan Fiber Systems) was a

competitive local exchange carrier A competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC), in the United States and Canada, is a telecommunications provider company (sometimes called a " carrier") competing with other, already established carriers, generally the incumbent local exchange carrie ...

that owned and operated local network access facilities installed in and around major U.S. cities and several major European cities. MFS also possessed significant transmission and switching facilities and network capacity that it leased from other carriers in the United States and Western Europe.

History

The company was founded in 1988 as Kiewit Communications, a subsidiary of

Kiewit Corporation Kiewit Corporation is an American privately held construction company based in Omaha, Nebraska founded in 1884. In 2021, it was ranked 243rd on the Fortune 500. Privately held, it is one of the largest construction and engineering organizations ...

. By 1991, the company owned fiber-optic lines that serve large business customers in 11 cities. In 1993, the company became a

public company A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange (l ...

via an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

. In April 1996, the company announced the acquisition of

UUNET UUNET, founded in 1987, was one of the largest Internet service providers and one of the early Tier 1 networks. It was based in Northern Virginia and was one of the first commercial Internet service providers. Today, UUNET is an internal brand ...

. In August 1996,

WorldCom MCI, Inc. (subsequently Worldcom and MCI WorldCom) was a telecommunications company. For a time, it was the second largest long-distance telephone company in the United States, after AT&T. Worldcom grew largely by acquiring other telecommunic ...

announced the acquisition of the company and the transaction was completed in December 1996. Worldcom filed

bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...

in 2002.

Level 3 Communications Level 3 Communications was an American multinational telecommunications and Internet service provider company headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado. It ultimately became a part of CenturyLink (now Lumen Technologies), where Level 3 President ...

and

NorthPoint Communications NorthPoint Communications Group, Inc. was a competitive local exchange carrier focused on data transmission via digital subscriber lines. The company had relationships with Microsoft, Tandy Corporation, Intel, Verio, Cable & Wireless, Frontier C ...

were founded by former executives of MFS.

References

{{Reflist 1988 establishments in Nebraska 1993 initial public offerings 1996 mergers and acquisitions Defunct telecommunications companies of the United States