Metro Bytes: Birch, Lightpath, Noel, UK Broadband

Here’s a quick look at some other metro and regional fiber news already out this week:

Along with all the integration work Birch has been doing or planning to bring its acquisitions into the fold, they’ve apparently been building some fiber too. Yesterday they completed the integration and roll-out of 11,520 fiber strand miles in eastern Kentucky, a fairly underserved region when it comes to alterntive fiber providers. Birch is also planning to relocate its Pikeville, KY offices in the next few months. I believe that’s the former Lightyear location.

Lightpath continued to diversify its product portfolio with the introduction of managed video conferencing. The cloud-based service will give them another thing to sell to mid-sized and larger enterprises in the New York metro area. Lightpath passed the 7,000 lit-building mark in its single, albeit huge, metro area. They’re still adding buildings of course, but it seems clear that they’re also beefing up their portfolio in a bid to drive faster growth.

Up in the Pacific Northwest, Noel Communications is upgrading its network throughout the state of Washington. They’re deploying ADVA’s optical transport and Ethernet gear in an effort to extend further into rural markets. ADVA certainly seems to do well with regional operators like Noel.

And over in London, UK Broadband is busy adding millimeter wave to its London backhaul network.  They’re deploying Siklu’s gear as part of a solution to hook up small cell sites on light poles, bringing mobile data back to macro cell sites where they can do the heavy lifting with fiber or microwave.  I wonder if similar solutions will crop up here in the US backhaul markets for small cell.

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Categories: Metro fiber · Telecom Equipment