Business description of LEVEL-3-PARENT-LLC from last 10-k form

        Unless the context otherwise requires, when we use the words "Level 3," "we," "us" or "our company" in this Form 10-K, we are referring to Level 3 Communications, Inc., a Delaware corporation, and its subsidiaries, unless it is clear from the context or expressly stated that these references are only to Level 3 Communications, Inc.

        The Level 3 logo and Level 3 are registered service marks of our wholly owned subsidiary, Level 3 Communications, LLC, in the United States and other countries. All rights are reserved. This Form 10-K refers to trade names and trademarks of other companies. The mention of these trade names and trademarks in this Form 10-K is made with due recognition of the rights of these companies and without any intent to misappropriate those names or marks. All other trade names and trademarks appearing in this Form 10-K are the property of their respective owners.


 Cautionary Factors That May Affect Future Results
(Cautionary Statements Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995)

        This Form 10-K contains forward-looking statements and information that are based on the beliefs of our management as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to us. When we use the words "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "estimate" and "expect" and similar expressions in this Form 10-K, as they relate to us or our management, we are intending to identify forward-looking statements. These statements reflect our current views with respect to future events and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions.

        Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, our actual results may vary materially from those described in this document. These forward-looking statements include, among others, statements concerning:

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    our communications business, its advantages and our strategy for continuing to pursue our business;

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    anticipated development and launch of new services in our business;

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    anticipated dates on which we will begin providing certain services or reach specific milestones;

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    growth of the communications industry;

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    expectations as to our future revenue, margins, expenses, cash flows and capital requirements; and

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    other statements of expectations, beliefs, future plans and strategies, anticipated developments and other matters that are not historical facts.

        These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, including financial, regulatory, environmental, industry growth and trend projections, that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the statements. The most important factors that could prevent us from achieving our stated goals include, but are not limited to, the effects on our business and our customers of the current economic turmoil and the disruptions in the financial markets as well as our failure to:

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    increase and maintain the volume of traffic on our network and the resulting revenue;

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    successfully use new technology and information systems to support new and existing services;

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    prevent system failures that significantly disrupt the availability and quality of the services that we provide;

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    provide services that do not infringe the intellectual property and proprietary rights of others;

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    develop new services that meet customer demands and generate acceptable margins;

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    attract and retain qualified management and other personnel; and

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    meet all of the terms and conditions of our debt obligations.

        Except as required by applicable law and regulations, we undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Further disclosures that we make on related subjects in our additional filings with the SEC or Securities and Exchange Commission should be consulted. For further information regarding the risks and uncertainties that may affect our future results, please review the information set forth below under "ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS."


Part I

ITEM 1.    BUSINESS

        Unless the context otherwise requires, when we use the words "Level 3," "we," "us" or "our company" in this Form 10-K, we are referring to Level 3 Communications, Inc., a Delaware corporation, and its subsidiaries, unless it is clear from the context or expressly stated that these references are only to Level 3 Communications, Inc. Throughout this Form 10-K we use various industry terms and abbreviations, which we have defined in the Glossary of Terms at the end of this description of our business.

        Through our operating subsidiaries, we engage primarily in the communications business.

        We are a facilities based provider (that is, a provider that owns or leases a substantial portion of the plant, property and equipment necessary to provide its services) of a broad range of integrated communications services. We have created our communications network generally by constructing our own assets, but also through a combination of purchasing and leasing other companies and facilities. Our network is an advanced, international, facilities based communications network. We designed our network to provide communications services, which employ and take advantage of rapidly improving underlying optical, Internet Protocol, computing and storage technologies.

        Market and Technology Opportunity.    We believe that ongoing technology advances in both optical and Internet Protocol technologies have been revolutionizing the communications industry. We also believe that these advances have, and will continue to, facilitate decreases in unit costs for communications service providers that are able to most effectively take advantage of these technology advances. Service providers that can effectively take advantage of technology improvements and reduce unit costs will be able to offer lower prices, which, we believe, will stimulate substantial increases in the demand for communications services. We believe there are two primary factors that are continuing to drive this market dynamic:

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    Rapidly Improving Technologies.  Over the past few years, both Internet Protocol or IP and optical based networking technologies have undergone extremely rapid innovation, due, in large part, to market based development of underlying technologies. This rapid technology innovation has resulted in both an improvement in price performance for optical and Internet Protocol systems, as well as rapid improvement in the functionality and applications supported by these technologies. For example, these improvements have enabled voice over IP services or VoIP that are challenging traditional telephone network or PSTN services. We believe that this rapid innovation will continue well into the future across a number of different aspects of the communications marketplace.

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    High Demand Elasticity.  We believe decreases in communications services costs and prices cause the development of new bandwidth intensive applications, which, over time, result in even more significant increases in bandwidth demand. In addition, we believe that communications services are direct substitutes for other, existing modes of information distribution from sources such as traditional broadcast entertainment as well as distribution of software, audio and video content using physical media delivered using motor transportation systems. An example of this dynamic is the use of the Internet for the distribution of video entertainment.

        We believe that as communications services improve more rapidly than these alternative content distribution systems, significant demand will be generated from these sources of information. We also believe that high elasticity of demand from both these new applications and the substitution for existing distribution systems will continue for the foreseeable future. We believe that while high demand elasticity will be manifested over time, government regulation and communications supply chain inefficiencies may cause realization of demand to be delayed.

        We also believe that there are significant implications that result from this market dynamic. These implications include the following:

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    Incorporating Technology Changes.  Given the rapid rate of improvement in optical and Internet Protocol technologies, communications service providers that are most effective at rapidly deploying new services that take advantage of these technologies will have an inherent cost and service advantage over companies that are less effective at deploying new services that use these technologies.

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    Controlling Local Facilities.  Given the consolidation in the number of local access providers—that is, the providers of connections from long distance and backbone networks to traffic aggregation points or end user locations—communications service providers that have ownership of local and/or metropolitan network facilities as opposed to communications service providers that obtain these facilities from others will have an inherent cost and service advantage over companies that do not have ownership over these types of assets.