Telecom Ramblings

Optimum Lightpath, the metro fiber arm of Cablevision, announced today that it has passed the 3000 lit building threshold, on 3200 route miles of metro fiber in the New York City metropolitan area.  That is far and away the most for any CLEC in any market in the USA.  This statistic is helped of course by the factthat the NYC metro area has more buildings than any other, but regardless, the number is impressive.  Just a few months ago, their lit building count was just 2700, implying a very solid growth rate.

It is not clear from the PR whether the footprint they bought from 4Connections is part of their growth.  However since route miles increased by 700 – more than usual – I’d guess that those assets are included.  It seems that Optimum Lightpath will soon eclipse XO in lit buildings, although we can’t really be sure when since XO only gives us its number rounded to the nearest thousand.  (Come on XO, can’t you give us *one* more digit?  Please?)

While there is plenty of opportunity for greater penetration in NYC, one can’t help but wonder if Optimum Lightpath and its parent Cablevision might see other expansion opportunities out there.  Especially with prices so low right now, RCN (RCNI) and its dual cable and metro fiber footprint in the northeast comes to mind.