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Best Practices Criteria for World-Class Performance
Frost & Sullivan applies a rigorous analytical process to evaluate multiple nominees for each award
category before determining the final award recipient. The process involves a detailed evaluation of bestpractices criteria across two dimensions for each nominated company. Lumen Technologies excels inmany of the criteria in the network interconnection space.

Commitment to Innovation
Connectivity is critical to support today’s fast-paced technological advancements. Enterprises are rapidly
adopting virtualized technologies and software-defined network processes to improve businessoutcomes, and these technologies are latency-sensitive and require high-bandwidth connectivity.
Furthermore, secure high-bandwidth connectivity
is essential to address the growing cyber threat“ExaSwitch is an optical ecosystem thatlandscape. Secure high-speed connectivity
automates, scales, and manages high-volume
becomes paramount when interconnecting
interconnects, mainly from content providers,
hyperscalers, and large enterprises. It candifferent colocation facilities and data centers thatmanage high-bandwidth interconnections oftransmit enormous amounts of data daily.
100 Gbps and 400 Gbps, with each node able
Businesses require interconnections (defined asto scale up to 25 Tbps.”
private dedicated connections) to exchange traffic- Amrit Singhbetween 2 networks or locations, such as between
Senior Industry Analyst
business locations, different companies, data
centers to hyperscalers, and content providers to
the data center. However, physical interconnects must be configured one by one, for each connection
point. They take time to set up, are expensive to maintain, and do not provide the flexibility to scale
quickly, which are significant hindrances to cloud hyperscalers and other businesses that require network© Frost & Sullivan 2024

The Growth Pipeline Company™

agility to support accelerating data volumes.
Lumen Technologies (Lumen), formerly CenturyLink (it rebranded in 2020), is a global telecommunications
company headquartered in Monroe, Louisiana that offers a range of network products and solutions thatmeet the requirements of all vertical types and business sizes. In June 2023, Lumen launched an industryfirst solution to solve the challenges the industry is facing. ExaSwitch is an optical ecosystem thatautomates, scales, and manages high-volume interconnects, mainly from content providers, hyperscalers,and large enterprises. It can manage high-bandwidth interconnections of 100 Gbps and 400 Gbps, witheach node able to scale up to 25 Tbps.
ExaSwitch operators install optical hardware at customers’ edge locations, which are connected to
ExaSwitch locations using fiber connections. Customers can provision ExaSwitch through an online portal,
providing the ability to scale on-demand within minutes and eliminating the time-consuming manual
process. Adding an interconnect is a tiring process as it goes through paperwork, and the customer has towait for a technician to map a physical interconnect. ExaSwitch eliminates the more expensive anddifficult-to-maintain physical interconnections, freeing customers from the burden of procuring,
maintaining, and managing specialized data center equipment. ExaSwitch also reduces the recurring
optical interconnection fee, resulting in significant savings. In addition, eliminating hardware dependence
significantly lowers carbon footprint, adding to enterprises' sustainability initiatives.
Lumen partners with large Internet and cloud providers, including Google, Microsoft, and another large
Cloud Provider, to route the traffic between them as part of the ExaSwitch ecosystem. ExaSwitch enables
easy, cost-efficient, and quick interconnection to geographically distributed network partners, providing
enhanced connectivity and on-demand scalability to support the growing volumes of data in the cloud. In
future, Lumen plans to add new partners to strengthen the ExaSwitch ecosystem. Frost & Sullivan
applauds Lumen’s ExaSwitch as a cost-efficient technology innovation that simplifies the interconnection
process, serving entire metro regions irrespective of participants’ physical edge locations.

Commercialization SuccessWavelength services are primarily used by hyperscalers, content providers, and large enterprises that
require high-bandwidth connectivity to connect to data centers and colocations. In Frost & Sullivan’s 2023
market analysis, Lumen is the leader in the North American wavelength services market, based on its
revenue leadership and distinctive features to enhance the customer ownership experience, such as theTopology Viewer tool. Lumen’s wavelength customers include large content providers, financial
companies, and software companies that exchange enormous amounts of data between data centers.
These customers can benefit from the market-leading wavelength-based ExaSwitch platform tointerconnect to data centers across metro locations and scale with growing business needs through a selfservice portal. In future, Lumen should aim to attract large wavelength customers to become part of theExaSwitch ecosystem.
While ExaSwitch is a new offering, its commercialization success is assured because Lumen built theservice in partnership with the largest cloud providers, Google, Microsoft, and AWS. These organizations
use the service to connect across their own data center networks and with customers.

© Frost & Sullivan 2024

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Commitment to Creativity
As part of the digitalization initiative, businesses increasingly embrace cloud-based services to enhancetheir business operations and support software-defined network processes. In Frost & Sullivan’s 2023
Global Network Services survey, 53% of respondents indicated that a hybrid, multi-cloud strategy isessential to achieving their digitalization goals. Security, high bandwidth, low latency, and flexibility to use
multiple connectivity protocols are top of mind for businesses while connecting to cloud services. Unlike
many of its peers, Lumen’s cloud connect solution delivers on all these aspects, providing virtualized
networking to connect to leading public and private cloud providers. The company has extensive reach as
its wavelength, multiprotocol label switching (MPLS), and Ethernet services are available globally,providing businesses with different choices for cloud services. Furthermore, Lumen partners with major
cloud providers, including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle, to offer cloud connect services,
providing customers with varied choices. These“To power its ExaSwitch offering, Lumen
partners are specific candidates for the ExaSwitch
leverages its ultra-low-loss fiber network
platform.
comprising more than 65,000 route miles,
ExaSwitch powers Lumen’s cloud connect services.
delivering 400G capability on wavelength
networks in North America. The company
The company provides faster cloud connectivity
has 240+ points of presence in 70 Norththrough ExaSwitch, benefiting customers who require
American markets, with extensive coveragehigh capacity and private cloud connectivity, which itof Tier I and II markets.”
offers to customers’ edge locations without the needfor third-party colocation facilities. ExaSwitch also
- Amrit Singhpowers Lumen’s network-as-a-service, providing onSenior Industry Analyst
demand optical connections across its vast
wavelength network.
Frost & Sullivan applauds ExaSwitch for providing a unique and strong foundation for Lumen’s existing
services, strengthening its position in the network services space, and demonstrating the company’s
creativity to leverage technology advancements.

Growth Potential
ExaSwitch is the first optical ecosystem to automate, scale and manage high-value interconnects. It
dynamically routes traffic helping service providers, content providers and the largest of enterprises toautomate, scale and manage high-value interconnect services without third-party intervention. This
capability enables connections within minutes, reducing the time it takes to deploy capacity byautomating provisioning and removing manual processes like truck rolls. Lumen’s growth potential
facilitated by its extensive network footprint, which is one of the largest in the industry. The company isa prominent network service provider in North America, with an extensive fiber footprint, and it continues
to invest in building higher-capacity fiber routes. Lumen is present in 150,000 on-net buildings, with about
400,000 route miles of fiber optic worldwide that deliver the industry’s highest commercially available
connectivity speeds of up to 400 Gbps. The company serves all sizes of businesses in more than 60
countries, offering varied products and services. Its strong global presence strengthens and grows its
customer base, mainly businesses with globally distributed locations. To power its ExaSwitch offering,© Frost & Sullivan 2024

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Lumen leverages its ultra-low-loss fiber network comprising more than 65,000 route miles, delivering
400G capability on wavelength networks in North America. The company has 240+ points of presence in
70 North American markets, with extensive coverage of Tier I and II markets.

Application Diversity
Customer portals have become a must-have feature in the network services industry. Customers preferto manage their services through a dedicated portal that provides services such as usage monitoring,
performance tracking, site management, traffic flow and congestion, billing services, service alerts, andtroubleshooting. These capabilities improve service delivery and enhance the customer ownershipexperience. Lumen’s self-service portals across its network service portfolio offer distinctive features. For
instance, the company’s Topology Viewer, an innovative tool that it offers with its wavelength services,
allows customers to view, design, and quote wavelength services based on the available fiber routes. It
enables customers to strategize their network planning. Unlike some competitors that use a generic, allservices approach to user interfaces, Lumen offers different self-service portals for each service. This
enables the company to provide exclusive capabilities for each service, enhancing the customer
experience. ExaSwitch can also be managed through online portals, allowing customers to automate andscale on-demand, based on their business requirements. In addition, ExaSwitch provides fasterprovisioning through API-based dynamic optical switching to route traffic between colocations,eliminating third-party involvement and setting up connections in minutes.

Customer Acquisition
Businesses prefer to engage with a managed service provider for all their network service needs. In Frost& Sullivan’s 2023 Global Network survey comprising more than 1,300 respondents, 86% of respondents
indicated a managed service provider as the most preferred partner for their network service needs.
Businesses look for one-stop-shop service providers where they can purchase all the required network
services, as it is easier to manage network services than to purchase different services from different
providers. Lumen offers a diverse network services portfolio to accommodate businesses’ current andfuture network service needs. The company provides dedicated Internet access, Ethernet, wavelength
services, MPLS, SD-WAN, SASE, Internet on demand, DDoS, security with Black Lotus Labs, managed andprofessional services, and other network services. Furthermore, Lumen partners with key market
participants to attract new customers; for instance, it partners with major cloud service providers,
including Microsoft, Google, and another large Cloud Provider, to provide cloud connect services. The
same cloud service providers are the key partners for the ExaSwitch platform; therefore, it is easier for anexisting cloud connect customer to become a participant in the ExaSwitch ecosystem. When choosing aservice provider, businesses primarily select a provider with a global presence, a longtime participant, acompany that offers a full suite of network services, and a participant that has the experience to delivercomplex projects nationally and internationally. Lumen fulfills all these characteristics to be a one-stopshop, which helps it retain existing customers and attract new ones.

© Frost & Sullivan 2024

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Conclusion
Lumen’s ExaSwitch is a revolutionary approach for the network interconnections industry. It provides
automation, on-demand scalability and management of high-volume interconnects. Service providers,content providers, and large enterprises are the key beneficiaries of ExaSwitch, as they exchange
enormous amounts of traffic between data center locations. ExaSwitch is a wavelength-based solutionthat eliminates physical interconnections, resulting in significant cost savings and reducing carbon
emissions. Furthermore, existing network services support the ExaSwitch offering as businesses prefer toengage with providers that meet their current and future network service needs.
With its strong overall performance, Lumen Technologies earns Frost & Sullivan’s 2024 North American
Technology Innovation Leadership Award in the network interconnection industry.

© Frost & Sullivan 2024

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What You Need to Know about the Technology Innovation Leadership
Recognition
Frost & Sullivan’s Technology Innovation Leadership Award recognizes the company that has introduced
the best underlying technology for achieving remarkable product and customer success while driving
future business value.

Best Practices Award Analysis
For the Technology Innovation Leadership Award, Frost & Sullivan analysts independently evaluated thecriteria listed below.

Technology Leverage

Business Impact

Commitment to Innovation: Continuous
emerging technology adoption and creation
enables new product development andenhances product performance

Financial Performance: Strong overall financial
performance is achieved in terms of revenues,
revenue growth, operating margin, and otherkey financial metrics

Commitment to Creativity: Company leverages
technology advancements to push the limits ofform and function in the pursuit of white space
innovation

Customer Acquisition: Customer-facing
processes support efficient and consistent newcustomer acquisition while enhancing customer
retention

Stage Gate Efficiency: Technology adoption
enhances the stage gate process for launching
new products and solutions

Operational Efficiency: Company staff performs
assigned tasks productively, quickly, and to ahigh-quality standard

Commercialization Success: Company displays aproven track record of taking new technologies
to market with a high success rate

Growth Potential: Growth is fostered by astrong customer focus that strengthens thebrand and reinforces customer loyalty

Application Diversity: Company develops
and/or integrates technology that serves
multiple applications and multiple
environments

Human Capital: Commitment to quality and tocustomers characterize the company culture,
which in turn enhances employee morale andretention© Frost & Sullivan 2024

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About Frost & Sullivan
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Analytical Perspectives:© Frost & Sullivan 2024

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