Zayo Group (news, filings) said today that it is expanding its northeastern fiber network to include a focus on high capacity intercity Ethernet and wavelength transport. What that means is 800Gbps of new total network capacity being targeted at one of the most competitive intercity markets in the world, i.e. within the Chicago/NYC/WashingtonDC triangle with access points in key facilities in Chicago, Ashburn, Manhattan, Philadelphia, and Cleveland.
Zayo has long had the intercity assets to do this, but with the exception of a foray into the low latency NY/Chicago market the company has spent most of its effort on leveraging its metro fiber rather than delve into wholesale transport. However, what has changed is that with the purchase of 360networks last year they now have a substantial intercity Ethernet and transport business to the west of the Mississippi. Quite simply, they are now putting together a complementary product to the east as well.
So while the focus today is on the buildout in the eastern region, the real news is that Zayo’s newfound transcontinental potential is swiftly becoming reality. The metro business will remain their main one, of course, but the scale of their assets is making additional products attractive.
All they need now, as I’ve been saying, is to acquire a southeastern regional fiber network to bring all that Atlanta metro fiber into the fold and hook up to the landing stations in Miami. Then they will have rolled their way up to a full national presence, both metro and longhaul. But there is no perfect asset out there that I can think of that would do that, although I suppose XO would fit the bill.
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Categories: Internet Backbones · Metro fiber
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I would think that FiberLight or FPL/FiberNet would be a better option than XO.
Are you kidding me any option including joe blow intercity fiber is better than XO.
Are you kidding me any company including Joe Blow Intercity fiber is a better option than XO
Zayo doesn’t have it in itself to go after something like XO. Makes sense really when you think about their end state … build, create value, sell to a bigger more aggressive competitor like L3 who is looking to do a deal to gain size against VZ and T.
Any idea which equipment vendor they are using to light this fiber?
I haven’t heard anything definitive. But if they’re matching the 360networks side of things, that would imply a combination of Infinera and Alcatel-Lucent gear.
Very interesting post. Zayo will have to do more if they plan to take on XO.
I suppose I mentioned XO because Zayo is said to have bid for the company in the past – and I do think they could pull it off if the opportunity arose and other bidders weren’t aggressive.
But an alternative is to do it piecemeal. They could go buy Southern Telecom and DukeNet, for instance – both being assets that would fit well with their past purchases. Then throw in Southern Light Fiber for the link to New Orleans, and coverage is basically complete.
Are they building out colo space and who actually owns the fiber they connect their fiber assets to for the last mile, make sure to check route maps and latency. Some of the fiber may be leased from other providers like Level 3 to have access into these locations. Here is a link from two years ago, stating low latency routes, however they leased fiber on the old Level 3 route. http://www.telecomramblings.com/2010/02/zayo-joins-ny-chicago-low-latency-party/#comments
Anonymous, in answer to your two questions: 1) Zayo announced the availability of colo in Chicago last month. We also have colo space in Ashburn, Cleveland, NYC/Newark (3 facilities) and seven more cities not on the above map. 2) Our network maps and KMZs are public, available at the link attached to my name. The article you linked to discusses our fiber (and the diverse routes it offers) but it doesn’t even mentionL3, etc. Feel free to contact us with any questions, because being transparent about our network is part of our core strategy. Thanks.
Hmm, didn’t pull through the link. Here it is: http://www.zayo.com/fiber-network-maps