Metro Bytes: CenturyLink, Electric Lightwave, WOW, RCN, Windstream

Here’s a quick look at some news from the metro from this week:

CenturyLink has expanded its business fiber reach into Grand Junction, Colorado. They are now able to offer gigabit connectivity to businesses in the western Colorado city after upgrading their fiber network in and into the region. Meanwhile, CenturyLink also made a small M&A move, acquiring the networking assets of Active Broadband Networks to boost their own SDN and NFV capabilities further. For those scratching their heads on who that is, we did an interview with Active Broadband Networks’ Adam Dunstan a year and a half ago.

Electric Lightwave has moved on up to 200G up in the Pacific Northwest.  They’ve used Ciena’s packet-optical gear to deliver 200G waves on a 225 mile stretch between Hillsboro, Oregon and Seattle, Washington.  Integra re-launched the Electric Lightwave brand last year, and has continued to invest extra resources in the infrastructure division.  They’ll be rolling out the same technology on other routes going forward.

WOW! Business picked up a contract in the education vertical this week. Huntsville’s Madison Academy will be getting gigabit connectivity from the operator to serve its 160-acre campus as well as PRI voice and video services. It’s an upgrade from the campus’s previous coax connections which had been supplying some 200Mbps, and can support up to 10Gbps when the time comes.

RCN Business has a new partner out in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley. They are working with the independent power producer Talen Energy. Talen will be using the relationship to make a money-saving pitch to RCN customers served by other energy utilities in eastern Pennsylvania.

And Windstream is taking to the air in upstate New York. They have launched their fixed wireless access product up in Albany, aiming at the enterprise market. Windstream’s presence in Albany derives at least in part from its purchase of PAETEC, which had bought Cavalier, which had bought Elantic, which had been Dominion Telecom, which had bought Telergy’s metro network assets there way back in 2002, which constitutes our fiber history footnote of the day.

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Categories: Mergers and Acquisitions · Metro fiber · SDN · Telecom Equipment