EXHIBIT 99.1

                        METROMEDIA FIBER NETWORK GOES WEST,
                          ANNOUNCES MAJOR EXPANSION INTO 
                     SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA AND SILICON VALLEY

Company Also Gains Inter-city Links Connecting East and West Coasts


New York--July 16, 1998--Metromedia Fiber Network, Inc. (MFNX:Nasdaq) today
announced plans to expand its intra-city dark fiber network infrastructure to a
strategic West Coast corridor, adding the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon
Valley to the growing list of Tier One markets in which the Company plans to
offer local fiber optic infrastructure.  The planned network is intended to
cover in excess of 150 route miles, ringing the Bay Area, including many vital
Silicon Valley cities, such as San Jose and Santa Clara, and encompassing key
areas in downtown San Francisco.  The Company has recently signed a conduit
agreement within the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) right-of-way for a portion of
the network and plans to start the fiber optic build process immediately. 

The Company also announced the signing of a fiber swap agreement with fONOROLA,
a leading Canadian telecommunications company,  and  fiber swap and related
agreements with Pacific Fiber Link, L.L.C., enabling Metromedia Fiber Network to
connect its existing fiber optic infrastructure in the Northeast Corridor and
Chicago to the San Francisco Bay Area.  These agreements will give the Company
the ability to provide seamless connectivity from coast to coast.  Customers
utilizing Metromedia Fiber Network's intra-city infrastructure on both coasts
will be able to use the Company's inter-city links to connect locations in San
Francisco to locations in Chicago and New York and across the Atlantic Ocean to
London.  

"This expansion means that carriers and corporations, including the high-tech
companies in San Francisco and Silicon Valley's data-intensive communities, will
be able to take advantage of our unique unmetered, unlimited bandwidth offering,
which is already being met with great enthusiasm in the Northeast," said Howard
Finkelstein, President of Metromedia Fiber Network.  "Increasingly organizations
want to implement the latest high-tech applications, and our service offerings
allow them to increase bandwidth as they need it in order to utilize advanced
technologies, such as ATM or voice over IP, in a cost-effective way.  When
completed, our network infrastructure in the San Francisco Bay Area will allow
us to provide major organizations throughout the region with a high capacity
on-ramp to the information superhighway."
 
Metromedia Fiber Network's intra-city networks are being constructed in major
Tier One markets, connecting key corporate centers, government buildings, and
the major switching centers of local and long distance carriers.  The networks
employ state-of-the-art fiber optic infrastructure and a ring configuration to
provide customers with diverse routing.  

"By expanding into the San Francisco Bay Area, we will have established the
necessary foothold to launch a West Coast network mirroring our current network
in the Northeast.  We expect to continue to expand the number of intra-city
networks in Tier One cities in the future, enhancing





our position as the company that is eliminating the bandwidth barrier for the
largest users of communications services," Finkelstein said.

Headquartered in the New York area, Metromedia Fiber Network provides
technologically advanced, high-bandwidth, private, fiber optic communications
infrastructure within major U.S. markets.  The Company provides its
infrastructure to communications carriers competing in the local, long distance,
wireless, and Internet markets as well as corporate and government customers
requiring secure communications networks for the transmission of large amounts
of voice, data, and video.  Metromedia Fiber Network currently operates a fiber
optic metropolitan area network in New York and is developing local fiber
optictly operates a fiber optic metropolitan area network in New York and is
developing local fiber optic-bandwidth, private, fiber optic communications
infrastructure within major U.S. markets.  The Company provides its
infrastructure to communications carrier and will begin providing international
bandwidth capacity between the United States and the United Kingdom in 1998. For
more information about Metromedia Fiber Network, please visit the company's Web
site at www.mmfn.com.


THIS NEWS RELEASE CONTAINS CERTAIN FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS THAT INVOLVE RISKS
AND UNCERTAINTIES.  FACTORS THAT COULD CAUSE OR CONTRIBUTE TO SUCH RISKS AND
UNCERTAINTIES INCLUDE, BUT ARE NOT LIMITED TO, GENERAL ECONOMIC AND BUSINESS
CONDITIONS, COMPETITION, CHANGES IN TECHNOLOGY AND METHODS OF MARKETING, AND
VARIOUS OTHER FACTORS BEYOND THE COMPANY'S CONTROL.  THIS ALSO INCLUDES SUCH
FACTORS AS DESCRIBED FROM TIME TO TIME IN THE SEC REPORTS FILED BY METROMEDIA
FIBER NETWORK, INCLUDING THE MOST RECENTLY FILED FORM 10-Q.

MEDIA RELATIONS                         INVESTOR RELATIONS
Judy Sweeney/David King                 Eric Leeds
G. S. Schwartz & Co.                    G. A. Kraut Company Inc.
212-725-4500                            212-696-5600
dking@schwartz.com