With its expansion throughout the state of Virginia in place and the integration of Fibertech well along its path, I’ve been expecting Lightower to kick off a new project. They did so today, announcing a significant expansion southward into North Carolina.
Lightower plans to add more than 350 route miles of fiber across the state of North Carolina. Some 120 of that will expand on their existing foothold in Raleigh, while a brand new 90 miles of infrastructure in Charlotte will begin their efforts there. The remaining mileage will presumably hook those two markets back up to their existing footprint in Virginia and on to the northeast and Midwest. In Raleigh they’ll have interconnection points at 2100 Garner Station Boulevard, while in Charlotte they’ll be at 10105 David Taylor Drive and 121 N. Meyers Street.
Heading southward did seem a likely path for Lightower, with an eventual goal of reaching Atlanta perhaps. But first there are probably other markets in North Carolina to take on after they get the Raleigh and Charlotte networks up and running. There is also the possibility that Lightower might build on its new foothold in the Carolinas with a bit of M&A first. While DukeNet went to TW Cable (and now Charter), there’s still Spirit Communications’ PalmettoNet.
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This organic buildout makes a ton of sense when you look at what sits in the Carolina’s from a data center perspective, and the growth that markets like Charlotte and Raleigh have. Great move!
Mergers and acquisitions in NC have left enterprise companies with fewer choices over the last few years. A new network service provider who owns their own fiber with high capacity solutions and offers true network diversity to the local telcos and cable company will be well received.
PalmettoNet could work for Lightower and would bring them down to Atlanta, but Spirit is probably a better fit for CS&L now, which would close their gap between NC and SC. I see USSignal being a good for Lightower as they have more of a focus on enterprise customers and data centers.