XO Communications announced new initiatives this week to expand its presence in the enterprise market, including a new enterprise sales and support organization, an enhanced network, recently expanded IP service offerings and targeted guarantees.

The new Enterprise Solutions Group (ESG) is focused on delivering products to help enterprises gain efficiencies and improve performance of their existing networks and emerging applications, XO said. The group will leverage the capabilities of XO’s nationwide and metro networks and IP networking solutions expertise to deliver high-speed network access, MPLS IP-VPN, IP telephony and network infrastructure and transport solutions to enterprise locations nationwide.

Tim Shaheen, who has been appointed vice president of enterprise sales, will lead the ESG. Shaheen has more than 17 years of telecommunications experience and comes to XO from Ciena Corp., where he was a director of enterprise and carrier sales.

XO also said it recently completed an increase in the capacity of its core network by 200 percent, deploying an additional 800gbps of capacity on major coast-to-coast routes across its nationwide 18,000 route-mile optical network.

The company expanded its IP services portfolio to support the requirements of larger businesses and enterprises with the launch of XO MPLS IP-VPN, XO SIP, XO One iPBX and IP Flex with XO MPLS IP-VPN. Some of services include a range of high-speed Internet access options; MPLS IP-VPN; broadband wireless solutions and Ethernet services; metro and inter-city network solutions and optical networking services; and IP telephony.

Supporting this enterprise growth strategy is the XO 3 Guarantee Program, which offers large enterprises price, installation and satisfaction guarantees for selected long-haul and high-capacity network services, the company said.