Lumen shakes up telecom industry with Network-as-a-Service offering

Customers dream of fast, flexible networking; Lumen now delivers in minutes

DENVER, July 31, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN) launched its flagship capability on its Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) platform today. It's the first important step toward the company's bold vision to disrupt the telecom industry. By offering customers radical flexibility in how they buy, use, and manage networking services, Lumen is cloudifying traditional telecom.

"We have been preparing for this moment for a long time, building a world-class telecom network with state-of-the-art fiber, broad coverage and unsurpassed route diversity and scalability," said Kate Johnson, Lumen CEO. "Lumen's Network-as-a-Service offering takes the next step to deliver on our customers' networking dreams: the ability to fire up any port, with any service, at any time. It's your network, your way."

The Lumen NaaS Vision

Lumen® Internet On-Demand is the first and flagship service added to the Lumen NaaS platform, starting with limited availability. Over time, Lumen NaaS will expand to include security services, such as DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service), SASE (Secure Access Service Edge), and Edge services. The platform's fully digital, consumption-based model will set a new standard for customer experience and expectations. 

"Lumen is putting the customer at the center of our Network-as-a-Service platform, creating a cloud-like experience for buying, consuming, and managing our network services," said Andrew Dugan, Lumen CTO. "Businesses are looking for a dynamic, dedicated internet connection, but they want it from a reliable and flexible network. Unlike some Network-as-a-Service players, Lumen can deliver on this promise because we own and manage our network."  

Delivering on the Customer Dream 

"Lumen plays an important role in helping content providers move video content to AWS," said Evan Statton, Sr. Principal Architect in M&E at AWS. For example, Fox Sports was able to bring its live sports content to AWS by using an on-demand connection aligned with Lumen's Network-as-a-Service platform. We look forward to continued work with Lumen to help AWS customers achieve their live cloud production goals."

Customers win big with Lumen's NaaS experience. They will use a digital portal or APIs (Application Program Interface) to order Lumen Internet On-Demand and future services for instant internet connections to public data centers and port-enabled business locations. They can quickly assign an existing port at a new enterprise building, connecting them to Lumen's network. Once established, the digital experience begins, including: 

• A dedicated connection to one of the largest, most connected and secure networks in the world 
• Ability to scale capacity in minutes 
• Internet speeds from 100 Mbps to 10 Gbps
• A consumption-based billing model; pay only for the time services are active, starting at hourly rates 
• Real-time visibility into service performance and network usage
• Quick enablement of new capabilities

"Lumen has taken a pragmatic approach when it comes to understanding the evolving needs of the Network-as-a-Service market, in terms of matching user experience with capabilities offered," said Rohit Mehra, group vice president, Network and Telecommunications, IDC. "Using its high-capacity, global backbone network, Lumen Internet On-Demand delivers flexible network services for a customer-first approach. Lumen's commitment to providing an effortless operational experience holds promise for enterprises in terms of consuming, managing and upgrading their networks.

Aligning with Key Partners 

Lumen NaaS will leverage a broad digital ecosystem of partners – including data center, cloud, technology, and managed service providers - to maximize impact and reach. Digital Realty is one of the first third-party data center providers to join the Lumen Network-as-a-Service Alliance Partner program. Joint customers can provision on-demand services using a digital portal or API in real-time and increase or decrease bandwidth as needed. 

"We're delighted to be partnering with Lumen to redefine the enterprise digital transformation landscape," said Chris Sharp, CTO, Digital Realty. "Lumen's cutting-edge Network-as-a-Service solution combined with our global network of highly connected facilities and orchestration platform ServiceFabric™, empowers enterprises with on-demand, personalized experiences, revolutionizing the way networks are consumed and managed. This highlights our shared vision, as we unite to meet the evolving needs of our customers."

Lumen's new on-demand services will be updated and shared throughout the year. More information on Lumen Internet On-Demand can be found at https://www.lumen.com/en-us/networking/internet-on-demand.html. 

About Lumen Technologies:
Lumen connects the world. We are dedicated to furthering human progress through technology by connecting people, data, and applications – quickly, securely, and effortlessly. Everything we do at Lumen takes advantage of our network strength. From metro connectivity to long-haul data transport to our edge cloud, security, and managed service capabilities, we meet our customers' needs today and as they build for tomorrow. For news and insights visit news.lumen.com, LinkedIn: /lumentechnologies, Twitter: @lumentechco, Facebook: /lumentechnologies, Instagram: @lumentechnologies, and YouTube: /lumentechnologies. 

This release may include forward-looking statements (as defined by the federal securities laws), which are subject to the "safe harbor" protections thereunder. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results and are based on current expectations only, are inherently speculative, and are subject to a number of assumptions, risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control. Actual events and results may differ materially from those anticipated, estimated, projected or implied by us in those statements. Factors that could affect actual results include, but are not limited to, each of the matters and risks referenced from time to time in our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements for any reason, which speak only as of the date made.

SOURCE Lumen Technologies