Metro Bytes 7/16 – FiberLight, FiberTech, Integra, Cox, Comcast

Let’s play a bit of catchup on the various bits of metro fiber connectivity news that has built up over the last week or so:

Southeastern metro fiber builder FiberLight has padded its balance sheet with an additional $22M in cash from CoBank.  The new private debt will be made up of a $20M note and a $2M increase in their existing line of credit, and follows $13M from CoBank last summer.  FiberLight has been expanding its fiber networks aggressively across its footprint, with revenue doubling and the bottom line tripling in the past year.  At least some of the new cash will go into further development of the company’s DC area footprint, which they have extended south to Culpeper and north through Baltimore over the past year or two.

According to datacenter and disaster recovery experts IPR International, FiberTech has pulled its metro fiber into its Wilmington facility.  FiberTech will be providing multiple GigE circuits and a direct fiber link to Philadelphia, with lots of room for future expansion.  FiberTech joins abvt which also announced connectivity to IPR’s Wilmington facility this Spring.  No word yet about whether FiberTech’s owners have found a buyer since beginning the process earlier this year, but I’ll bet there will be some activity of some kind later this summer.

Integra Telecom won a nice contract as sole communications provider for the Northwest Cardiovascular Institute.  Integra will provide both voice and data services to the healthcare provider’s four Portland area clinics.  The northwestern metro and regional assets of the former Electric Lightwave surely form the basis for these services.  Lately Integra has been paying a bit more attention to its fiber assets relative to the rest of its CLEC business, I wonder if they are bringing facilities such as these hospitals fully on-net.

Cox Business has hired Steve Rowley as VP of field operations for the company’s western division.  He will be overseeing all sales and operations across Cox’s markets in Arizona, California, Louisiana and Nevada.  Mr. Rowley was formerly at Sprint in charge of indirect sales.  Maybe he’ll convince the company to add some metro fiber maps or statistics to its website so I can stop guessing about their coverage, haha.

And finally, with more from the cable providers, Comcast Business is bringing its 100Mbps business offering to Philadelphia and nearby parts of Delaware and southern and central New Jersey.  But this isn’t metro fiber, it’s cable modem services using DOCSIS 3.0.  I’m curious what impact Comcast will have in the business market with such services.

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Categories: Metro fiber