AboveNet Opens For Business In Toronto

With the Zayo transaction still fresh in our minds, abvt is still pushing forward with its own expansion initiatives. They’ve been working toward a Toronto rollout a year now, and today they finally launched the new market formally.  Toronto is the key hub for the Canadian bandwidth markets, and its financial sector has been targeted in various ultra-low latency efforts from both New York and Chicago.

It’s probably no accident that AboveNet is doing this just two weeks after the Canadian government finally loosened its restrictions on foreign ownership of telecommunications assets.  Those restrictions have for a long time restrained US fiber operators from moving in on Toronto at the fiber level, which is of course where AboveNet prefers to be.  There will probably be quite a lot of maneuvering this year amongst carriers of all sizes as they optimize their networks for the new regulatory reality.

The expansion brings AboveNet’s full MAN and WAN portfolio to Canadian customers in key data centers already on-net, including that of Cologix at 151 Front Street West. I have not yet found a map of their initial metro presence, but I’m sure one will turn up before too long.

Last week, Zayo Group (news, filings) announced its intention to buy AboveNet, and if the deal is consummated then this would actually be Zayo’s second foray into Canada since 360Networks extended its network into Vancouver last year.

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Categories: Metro fiber