Level 3 Financing, a subsidiary of network connectivity provider Level 3 Communications, is planning an offering of $640 million in senior notes. The company plans to use the proceeds to buy its senior notes that are due in 2013.

Tuesday's announcement comes as the data center industry finds itself in a gradually unfreezing credit environment, following a nearly complete freeze at the recent economic downturn's peak. Level 3 provides network connectivity services to many data centers in the US and Europe.

The company made its announcement on the same day as Canadian data center services provider Peak 10 announced new expanded credit facility of $95 million, secured from a syndicate of banks lead by RBC Capital Markets.

At the end of November, large Texas colocation provider CyrusOne secured new credit capacity of $150 million - capital it plans to invest in further expansion of its data center footprint. RBC was also one of the leaders of the group of lenders that made the capital injection possible.

RBC also participated in arranging a deal in which data center provider Switch and Data secured $100 in debt financing in September. Switch and Data has since been acquired by Equinix.