[SysArchitect]

Friend of mine who worked at Qwest in the early days and worked with Level3:

"Interestingly enough, Level3 started out by building out the Qwest network as a contractor building out the fiber. Level3 in exchange for some of the work L3 was given long-term IRUs on the fiber and heavily discounted conduit leases.

Level3 to this day still leases a lot of fiber from CenturyLink (ala Qwest)..."

CenturyLink buying Level3 means that they are basically leasing to themselves :P