September 24, 2001 Data communications and hosting company KPNQwest (www.kpnqwest.com) has won a contract worth at least 7.2 million euros from NORDUnet—the Nordic, Central and Eastern Europe research network—to provide a mixed solution of IP transit and managed broadband services to the U.S., with back-up connectivity to Europe. Billed as Europe's first 2.5 Gbit/sec port with U.S.-based traffic, the solution is designed to provide NORDUnet with access to the Internet, U.S. research networks, and Startap—an international exchange point for research networks.