Zayo announced today that will be taking over the network oversight and support for Colorado’s EAGLE-Net Alliance. EAGLE-Net is a quasi-governmental organization aimed at getting fiber to the harder to reach parts of Colorado — which pretty much means anywhere but Denver and Colorado Springs.
EAGLE-Net won a $100.6M BTOP deal to bring fiber to anchor institutions across Colorado a few years back in 2010. But they soon ran into trouble after only hooking up a little over half of the promised sites before running out of money. After a suspension by the NTIA was lifted, they tapped Affiniti of Colorado in 2013 to help finish the project, essentially privatizing the operations to a previously unknown company.
Apparently that hasn’t gone very well either, which will probably surprise nobody who has been involved with the project over the years. In a letter today to its customers, EAGLE-Net was quite blunt that Zayo is in and Affiniti is out:
Effective immediately, EAGLE-Net is very happy to announce that it has established a partnership with a new network operator – Boulder, Colorado-based Zayo Group – to enable EAGLE-Net to continue its goal of providing cutting-edge broadband services to schools, community anchor institutions and businesses across Colorado. Zayo is replacing Affiniti Colorado LLC, which is no longer EAGLE-Net’s network operator.
At the moment it is an interim agreement, while the two sides work on an expanded long-term partnership. While EAGLE-Net emphasized that services will not be interrupted etc, the fact that an interim agreement is necessary suggests that they had to move quickly. But I have yet to hear just what prompted the abrupt about-face and in whose hands the fiber Affiniti was operating now sits. If anybody has any details, we’d love to hear them!
Zayo would have been a logical candidate for this sort of thing from the beginning of course, and in fact they provided a bunch of dark fiber to EAGLE-Net‘s network along the way.
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Categories: Government Regulations · Metro fiber
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FYI…. Affiniti filed suit against Eaglenet
https://dockets.justia.com/docket/colorado/codce/1:2015cv01507/157122
Hmmm, sounds like “that hasn’t gone very well either” may have understated the case…
Not surprising as the current CEO at Affiniti comes from the software world and feels the best strategy to win business in the e-rate and healthcare space if to resell. He and board had no interest in developing the EagleNet asset. Good for EagleNet and Zayo. They have a partner with executive team that understands fiber infrastructure.
Read the case Affiniti filed. Many material deficiencies on Eaglenets side. Multiple FCC registrations misding. Missing 90 miles fiber, $6 mil in materials disappeared, set up agreements outside of Affiniti. Much bad decisions and acting by eaglenets. Many afiniti letters to make better eaglenets no care