Level 3 Communications' Wholesale Markets Group announces that it has expanded its relationship with BendBroadband to serve as the underlying service provider for BendBroadband's new Business Voice Service offering.

Under the terms of the multi-year agreement, BendBroadband, an Oregon-based cable operator, will use the Level 3 VoIP Enhanced Local service to provide small and medium-sized businesses with a new, cost-effective solution for local and long-distance calling. BendBroadband Business Phone will include enhanced voicemail, E-911 service and popular calling features such as caller ID, call waiting and 3-way calling.

"We are proud to be at the forefront of extending facilities-based, digital phone capabilities to businesses," said Amy Tykeson, chief executive officer of BendBroadband. "BendBroadband Business Phone is an affordable and innovative new service with unique features that are not available from traditional providers. Level 3 enables us to deliver the same broad coverage and high level of reliability to businesses that our residential voice customers have come to know and expect. We are delighted to bring true choice to the small business community in Central Oregon."

"We believe that the small and medium business market offers a great growth opportunity for BendBroadband -- and for all cable operators," said Rich DiGeronimo, vice president and general manager of cable markets for Level 3. "Level 3 provides the core voice infrastructure that enables cable providers to quickly and cost-effectively bring dependable voice services to market, and to easily scale their offerings to meet increasing demand from small and medium businesses. We applaud BendBroadband for quickly bringing solutions to small and medium businesses, and we are looking forward to working closely with them on this important new initiative."

The Level 3 VoIP Enhanced Local service supports BendBroadband's local, long distance and international voice traffic, providing voice origination, voice termination and directory listings. The service also enables BendBroadband to connect its customers to the public switched telephone network which allows those customers to make calls to anywhere in the world.

Level 3's VoIP Enhanced Local service provides the essential components required to offer reliable and high-quality local voice service. These components include network trunking, local numbers, local number portability, E-911, operator assistance, directory listings, and directory assistance. The Level 3 VoIP Enhanced Local service also enables Level 3 customers to manage and control end-user features to customize the service for their end-user customer.