centers in North America and Europe. On May 7, 2012, Level 3 was contracted by the U.S. Department of Defense's Defense Information Systems Agency to provide fiber-cable operations and maintenance, and IP-based infrastructure under a ten-year, indefinite contract with a maximum value of approximately $411 million. On June 16, 2014, Level 3 acquired TW Telecom, a business Internet connection provider, for about $5.7 billion. In July 2015, Level 3 acquired Black Lotus, a provider of protection against distributed denial of service (DDoS). On October 31, 2016, CenturyLink announced its intent to acquire Level 3 in a deal valued at around $34 billion. On October 3, 2017, the deal was approved by the United States Department of Justice on condition of selling some of Level 3's telecom holdings in three states. The deal officially closed and Level 3 became part of CenturyLink on November 1, 2017. On November 1, 2017, Level 3 Communications officially merged with CenturyLink. As part of the merger, work was required to divest of 24 individual fiber optic lines spanning 30 city pairs as required by the US Department of Justice. Additionally, Level 3 was required to divest of metro Ethernet markets in Boise, Tucson, and Albuquerque to satisfy antitrust requirements. The company complied with the divestiture of those assets. Operations Network Level 3 Communications operated a large network Internet, with infrastructure in 46 states in the continental United States, South America, Western Europe, and some cities in Asia. It uses transatlantic cables, including "Yellow" /AC-2 (on which it owned two of the four fiber pairs after Viatel's 2001 bankruptcy). Level 3 Communications has also purchased 300 Gbit/s of capacity on the Apollo (cable system). At the time of acquisition by CenturyLink, it was owner of AS1 (following the acquisition of Genuity, from BBN Technologies), but it used AS3356 for operations. AS3356 consistently had one of the highest ranked connectivity degrees on the Internet. It also operated the former Global Crossing network (AS3549) following the company acquisition in 2011. Level 3 Communications delivered Netflix and Apple music and video content over the Internet. The company ran a content delivery network which it acquired from Savvis in 2006. In 2006, Level 3 Communications announced with Internet2, an academic network, that they would deploy a next generation nationwide research network. Sales organization Level 3 distributed and sold its services through a mix of six independent sales channels: large enterprise,