Canadian National, Illinois Central Announce Fiber-Optic Joint Ventures With Worldwide Fiber Inc.MONTREAL--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 1, 1999-- Canadian National (CN) (ME:CNR) (TSE See Tokyo Stock Exchange. TSE 1. See Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE). 2. See Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE). :CNR) (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange :CNI (1) (Certified NetWare Instructor) See Novell certification. (2) (Coalition for Networked Information, Washington, DC, www.cni.org) A partnership of the Association of Research Libraries, CAUSE and EDUCOM, founded in 1990. ) and Illinois Central (IC) announced today they have signed agreements to establish two fiber-optic cable joint ventures with Worldwide Fiber Inc. (WFI WFI Wide Field Imager WFI Water For Injection WFI Wireless Facilities Inc. WFI Workforce Florida, Inc. WFI WaterFurnace International WFI Wraparound Fidelity Index WFI Water For Irrigation WFI Washington Food Industry (Olympia, WA) ), a subsidiary of Ledcor Industries Ltd. of Vancouver, B.C. The agreements grant the joint ventures preferred access to CN and IC rights-of-way to develop fiber optic transmission systems (FOTS (Fiber Optic Transmission System) Referred to the first optical fiber systems used by the telephone companies. Deployment started in the late 1960s and developed slowly. There was no vendor interoperability in these early systems. See optical fiber. ) and resell strand and conduit capacity to telecommunications companies and Internet providers. The first network segment to be built on CN will link Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto and Buffalo, N.Y. Construction of this segment will start this month and should be complete by the fourth quarter of 1999. An extension of this link, from Quebec City to Halifax, is committed for next year. Construction of a mid-America FOTS segment on the Illinois Central will start in September 1999. It will link Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis and New Orleans, and should be complete during the fourth quarter of 2000. As part of this project, IC will gain access to a new uninterrupted fiber-optics network that will upgrade the railroad's traffic control, signal and telecommunications system. CN and IC last week received the final, written decision of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board approving CN's acquisition of IC. CN will assume control of IC routes and assets on June 24, 1999, and launch a step-by-step integration of the railroads July 1. Ed Harris, IC's vice-president of operations and as of July 1 CN's vice-president, Midwest division, said: "A key benefit of this venture is that it will provide IC with a leading-edge communications system for rail operations. It will be entirely compatible with CN's existing fiber-optics network. This can only add to the efficiency of our North American rail system." The joint ventures (WFI-CN Fiber Inc. and WFI-IC LLC) will be controlled and financed by Worldwide Fiber Inc. As minority shareholders, CN and IC will share in the net cash flows distributed over time from joint venture fiber-optic sales to third parties. Claude Mongeau, CN's vice-president, strategic and financial planning, said: "This innovative partnership with WFI provides CN with a great opportunity to generate additional cash flow and earnings from an asset base otherwise dedicated to rail activities." Canadian National Railway Company Canadian National Railway Company (NYSE: CNI, TSX: CNR) is a Canadian rail transportation company that operates the Canadian National Railway. It was created in December, 1918 as a Crown corporation of the Government of Canada to nationalize several bankrupt rail systems operates track in eight provinces and six U.S. states, with principal routes to every major metropolitan area in Canada and to the major U.S. rail hubs of Buffalo, Detroit, Duluth/Superior, Wis., and Chicago. CN is North America's only transcontinental railroad, and Canada's largest railroad serving all five major Canadian ports on the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and the Great Lakes. Illinois Central Corporation, whose principal subsidiary is the Illinois Central Railroad Illinois Central Railroad (IC) former U.S. railroad founded in 1851 that merged with the Canadian National Railway Co. (CN) in 1999. After receiving its charter in 1851, the Illinois Central Railroad built its first line from Galena to Cairo, Ill. Company, operates track running north-south between Chicago and the Gulf of Mexico Noun 1. Gulf of Mexico - an arm of the Atlantic to the south of the United States and to the east of Mexico Golfo de Mexico Atlantic, Atlantic Ocean - the 2nd largest ocean; separates North and South America on the west from Europe and Africa on the east , and east-west between Chicago, Iowa and Nebraska. IC's main north-south route reaches the major metropolitan areas of St. Louis, Memphis, New Orleans and Baton Rouge, La. IC's east-west route extends from Sioux City, Iowa <noinclude></noinclude> Sioux City (IPA: [su: 'sɪti]) is a city located in northwest Iowa in the United States. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 85,013. , and Omaha, Neb., to Chicago. |
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