Where RCN Metro Is – Lit Buildings

Continuing further along my lit building thread, I looked at the smaller regional footprint of RCN Metro.  This of course is a division of RCN rather than a standalone company, however they are kind enough to publish their lit building list.  Once again, I shoehorned their data into the appropriate MSAs so that the data is comparable to others.  With no further ado, here are their top 10 markets by MSA:

Now, it isn’t a surprise that RCN Metro is concentrated quite heavily in a few major cities, that’s always been their plan and their fiber parallels the markets of the parent company.  I hadn’t realized that their NY/NJ metro area market was quite that dense, but I suppose a good portion of it comes from their acquisition of ConEd Communications a couple years ago that focused on NYC.  Also of note is the high concentration of enterprise buildings connected to their network in all their main markets, clearly they focus on this area.  Their acquisition of Neon added many smaller markets with 5 or less lit buildings of course.

My biggest takeaway is that RCN metro looks like something TW Telecom would want to buy.  TW Telecom is weakest where RCN is strongest: specifically those NYC, Boston, and Washington DC markets.  The fit would give them instant scale there and an entry into New England and Pennsylvania – where they don’t currently have markets at all.  The Chicago assets of course wouldn’t hurt either.  Of course, the assets might appeal to others as well, it’s just that possibility that caught my eye.

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Categories: CLEC · Metro fiber