LOUISVILLE, Colo., Nov. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Following its recent acquisition of Minneapolis-based telecommunications provider Onvoy, Zayo Bandwidth, a regional provider of high bandwidth services, today announced the formation of a new business unit called Onvoy Voice Services and has appointed former Onvoy chief operating officer, Fritz Hendricks, president of the business.

Onvoy Voice Services was formed to provide dedicated service to local exchange carriers (LEC) and other communications providers to support their competitive needs. The Zayo unit currently provides switched access, long distance, SS7, directory assistance and operator services. It reaches more than 350 communities in Minnesota and provides network access to all Minnesota local access and transport areas with connecting points in all neighboring states. Each day, Onvoy Voice Services processes more than one million calls, representing 10 million minutes of usage, using three switches.

"Through Zayo's expanded network, Onvoy Voice Services can further aggregate scale and reach bringing choice and stability to rural communication providers," Hendricks said. "Through peering agreements with other providers, we also will be able to offer cost-effective solutions on a national scale."

Fritz Hendricks has more than 25 years of experience in the telecommunications industry. Prior to joining Zayo, Hendricks was COO of Onvoy where he was responsible for engineering, operations, IT, product innovations, product management, market development and customer care. Prior to Onvoy, he spent 17 years at US West (now Qwest) where he held a number of leadership positions culminating in vice president of operations for Qwest Global Services. Hendricks began his career at Cox Communications. He serves as the Chairman of the Minnesota Telecom Alliance Technology and Engineering Board and also has served on the Best Prep Tech Corp Board of Directors, a nonprofit organization that supports the advancement of technology education in public schools. Hendricks holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Bellevue and is a graduate of the Carnegie Mellon Information Networking Institute for Advance Telecommunication Innovation.

The creation of Onvoy Voice Services follows Zayo's recent announcement about the formation of its Zayo Managed Services business unit designed to focus on meeting the needs of private and public sector enterprises looking to avoid the expense and challenges of managing their voice, video and data services on their own.

"Zayo appreciates the deep and long standing relationship Onvoy has had with the greater Minnesota LEC community," emphasized Dan Caruso, president and CEO of Zayo. "My priority is to support Fritz in his quest to strengthen and expand Onvoy's relationship with our LEC partners."

Five major investors -- each with deep telecommunications experience -- have funded Zayo Bandwidth. The company recently has completed five acquisitions: VoicePipe Communications, Inc., a provider of retail voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services; Onvoy, a 1,400-mile fiber network serving Minnesota; Indiana Fiber Works, a 2,200 fiber-route-mile network serving Indiana; PPL Telcom, a 4,600 fiber-route-mile network based in Allentown, Penn. serving areas in the Northeast; and Memphis Networx, a 200 fiber-route-mile network serving the greater Memphis, Tenn. area.

About Zayo Bandwidth

Based in Louisville, Colo., Zayo Bandwidth utilizes its regional fiber networks to provide bandwidth services to carriers, enterprises, state and government agencies and other bandwidth intensive organizations. Zayo Bandwidth's service offerings include private line, Ethernet, wavelength, Internet and colocation services. Zayo Bandwidth is backed by Columbia Capital, M/C Venture Partners, Oak Investment Partners, Battery Ventures and Centennial Ventures. http://www.zayo.com/.

CONTACT: Guy Murrel of Catapult PR-IR, +1-303-581-7760, ext. 17, mobile,
+1-303-808-7793, gmurrel@catapultpr-ir.com, for Zayo Bandwidth

Web site: http://www.zayo.com/