WASHINGTON (AP) - If another terrorist attack or major power outage hits Wall Street, new back-up systems in northeast Pennsylvania would take over, government and industry officials said Thursday.
A fiber-optic network to link New York City's financial services district to Pennsylvania's so-called 'Wall Street West' is planned, under a $40 million project to ensure stock and bond trading continue if disaster strikes.
The state of Pennsylvania chose Level 3 Communications Inc., a computer network operator, to link the two systems. Under the agreement, Level 3 will build a network that can protect critical financial information if there is a major outage in the New York City area.
After the September 11 terrorist attacks, the federal government recommended that financial services firms establish backup sites and continuity plans, enabling trading and other activities to resume as quickly as two hours after a major outage or attack.
In October, Pennsylvania government and business officials wooed executives from Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and other institutions on a helicopter ride from Manhattan to a resort in the Pocono Mountains to sell them on Wall Street West.
Construction should start over the next year, according to Level 3, which sells Internet services to companies ranging from AT&T Inc. and Alltel Corp. to Verizon Communications Inc.
The network is expected to be complete within 30 months, according to Pennsylvania officials.
To provide proper data connections, fiber-optic lines cannot exceed 125 fiber miles in each direction and northeastern Pennsylvania is about 80 miles west of New York.
Once the new network is in place, it will meet Federal Reserve and Securities and Exchange Commission recommendations that backup sites not rely upon the same infrastructure used at primary sites by financial firms, state officials said.
In a release, Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao said the Level 3 deal is part of a federal economic development initiative in the region under which local officials received a three-year, $15 million grant in February 2006.
The federal program is designed to attract financial services firms to northeastern Pennsylvania and includes a work force development program and other financial incentives.
The remaining $25 million for Wall Street West will come from state and private funding.
Shares of Broomfield, Colo.-based Level 3 dipped 8 cents to close at $5.57 on Thursday.
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