Telecom Ramblings

Not everyone is paralyzed by the financial crisis.  Far from Wall Street, the economy does go on.  Fiber does get installed and lit, and services get sold.  No less than three expansions of metro and regional fiber were announced in the last few days, one by Fiberlight, another by AFS, and yet another by US Carrier.

Fiberlight is constructing a new fiber loop in northern Virginia, adding another 130 route miles to go along with its already extensive 300 route mile fiber network in the region.  The new loop will hook up the city of Culpeper and the NAP of the Capital Region, a large, new datacenter from Terremark Worldwide (TMRK) that opened this summer.

Meanwhile, American Fiber Systems has extended its Reno, Nevada metro footprint southward to Carson City, having added 5760 fiber miles in the process.  AFS’s metro fiber presence in the mountains of the west is definitely a unique asset, and CEO Dave Rusin’s ‘triumph of the tortoise‘ is becoming increasingly visible.

Down south, US Carrier is extending its reach to Birmingham AL, and building a metro loop there.  US Carrier has an extensive regional fiber network that is centered in Georgia.  There was a report in 2006 that AFS had bought a controlling interest in US Carrier, but I don’t know the relationship now and I can’t find further info on it since then so I’m curious if it is still in place.

Regardless, the markets may churn and boil, but the telecom world does keep on working, bits are still being pushed.  So far anyway.