United Fiber & Data Looks South

Fresh off the completion of its unique NYC-Ashburn longhaul route, United Fiber & Data is not resting on its laurels. The company is telling people that they have a new fiber project on the drawing board that will extend their network south from Ashburn into new markets.

UFD’s new plans are for a new fiber route from northern Virginia down to Charlotte, North Carolina with an eventual destination of Atlanta in mind. As with the NYC/Ashburn leg, the idea is to build all-new infrastructure on a completely diverse route from the fiber-heavy I-95 corridor, reaching into regional markets that tend to be underserved.  Those regional markets will like that idea of course, but it’s probably the hunger for diversity, triversity, and quadversity from the hyperscale tech guys that are driving demand for a buildout like this.

They aren’t saying exactly what route they will take just yet. But if one takes a page from their current network one might expect a western route hugging the Appalachian mountains. Markets like Roanoke or Lynchburg would likely be involved.

UFD will be ready to start the field engineering on the project in Q3 of this year, and if all goes well they hope to start acquiring rights-of-way in Q2 of next year.  It took a rather long while for UFD’s first network build, but the company seems to have hit its stride and the second leg likely won’t take nearly as long.

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Categories: Fiber Networks