Fototica Optimizes Customer Service Capacity Using Level 3 Data Center Services

SAO PAULO, July 10, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Level 3 Communications, Inc. (NYSE: LVLT) today announced an agreement with Fototica, a top eye care provider in Brazil, and member of Grand Vision B.V., a Dutch holding company that is a global leader in the optical retail market. Level 3's virtual hosting, colocation and redundancy services will support Fototica's business operations in the Brazilian states of Sao Paulo, Bahia, Pernambuco and Sergipe.

Fototica selected Level 3 to provide efficient and secure services for its growing business. Level 3's data center services will connect Fototica's 800 employees and sellers—throughout its 120 stores—to critical data needed to perform sales operations as well as other processes, such as product changes, stock control and communicate with optical laboratories located in Sao Paulo and Salvador. The company's data will be hosted at Level 3's data center servers based in Latin America, where it can be securely accessed at any time by the company's financial team in its regional headquarters.

"Fototica performs critical operations that require around-the-clock support, redundancy and high capacity to assist an average of 30,000 customers a day, and the order of 15,000 glasses on a monthly basis," said Rodrigo Baldini, IT director at Fototica. "Today, thanks to Level 3's services, our capacity and security have increased to meet our current customer demand and we have the additional comfort of knowing we can expand our projects when it is required through Level 3's scalable solutions."

"Level 3 makes ongoing investments to develop advanced data center services to help clients, like Fototica, take their business to the next level," said Marcos Malfatti, senior vice president of Sales for Level 3 Brazil. "This project will help Fototica optimize the management of their points of sale, improve their organizational efficiency and provide high-level security for its important data."

Level 3 operates more than 350 data center and collocation facilities worldwide, including assets in North America, Europe and Latin America. These facilities offer the uptime and redundancy necessary to ensure enterprises, carriers and government agencies have continual access to their critical data and applications to maintain continuity of operations.

For more information about Level 3's advanced network and service offerings, visit www.level3.com.

About Fototica
Fototica, one of the major optical networks in Brazil is part of Grand Vision, Dutch Holding world leader in optical retail with more than 4,000 stores in Europe, South America, Middle East, and India. The company sells full glasses – frame and lenses –, sunglasses, and contact lenses. It owns 120 stores in four Brazilian states: Sao Paulo, Bahia, Pernambuco and Sergipe. They operate with domestic and international brands, including fashionable brands such as Ray-Ban, Carrera, Gucci, Prada, Hugo Boss, Lacoste and Dior, among others, in addition to their exclusive brands, sold throughout the whole Grand Vision network. Directed by Alvaro Vieira, it has approximately 800 employees in Brazil.

About Level 3 Communications
Level 3 Communications, Inc. (NYSE: LVLT) is a Fortune 500 company that provides local, national and global communications services to enterprise, government and carrier customers. Level 3's comprehensive portfolio of secure, managed solutions includes fiber and infrastructure solutions; IP-based voice and data communications; wide-area Ethernet services; video and content distribution; data center and cloud-based solutions. Level 3 serves customers in more than 500 markets in over 60 countries across a global services platform anchored by owned fiber networks on three continents and connected by extensive undersea facilities. For more information, please visit www.level3.com or get to know us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

© Level 3 Communications, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Level 3, Level 3 Communications, Level (3) and the Level 3 Logo are either registered service marks or service marks of Level 3 Communications, LLC and/or one of its Affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. Any other service names, product names, company names or logos included herein are the trademarks or service marks of their respective owners. Level 3 services are provided by subsidiaries of Level 3 Communications, Inc.

The information contained under the caption "About Fototica" has been provided by Fototica, which is solely responsible for its content.

Forward-Looking Statement
Some statements made in this press release are forward-looking in nature and are based on management's current expectations or beliefs. These forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of performance and are subject to a number of uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside Level 3's control, which could cause actual events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the statements. Important factors that could prevent Level 3 from achieving its stated goals include, but are not limited to, the company's ability to: manage risks associated with continued uncertainty in the global economy; increase revenue from its services to realize its targets for financial and operating performance; maintain and increase traffic on its network; develop and maintain effective business support systems; manage system and network failures or disruptions; avert the breach of its network and computer system security measures; develop new services that meet customer demands and generate acceptable margins; manage the future expansion or adaptation of its network to remain competitive; defend intellectual property and proprietary rights; manage continued or accelerated decreases in market pricing for communications services; obtain capacity for its network from other providers and interconnect its network with other networks on favorable terms; attract and retain qualified management and other personnel; successfully integrate future acquisitions; effectively manage political, legal, regulatory, foreign currency and other risks it is exposed to due to its substantial international operations; mitigate its exposure to contingent liabilities; and meet all of the terms and conditions of its debt obligations. Additional information concerning these and other important factors can be found within Level 3's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Statements in this press release should be evaluated in light of these important factors. Level 3 is under no obligation to, and expressly disclaims any such obligation to, update or alter its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

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