Metro Bytes: XO, UF&D, RCN, EarthLink

May 12th, 2016 by · 1 Comment

It’s been a busy week at all levels of the industry, here’s another roundup of news items worth a look from competitive providers:

With the purchase of XO by Verizon still 3-4 quarters off and the various shareholder trials waiting for decisions etc, it was nice to see the competitive operator do a little network expansion of its own this week.  They have established a new PoP in Philadelphia, taking up residence in vXchnge’s data center there.  The two companies have a pretty good working relationship already, with XO already having PoPs in 9 other vXchnge locations around the country.

In New York we heard a peep from a quarter that has been quiet for a rather long while now.  United Fiber & Data says it has completed a build-out at Equinix’s NY9 data center at 111 8th Avenue in Manhattan, complementing its location at NY4 over in Secaucus.  UF&D made a splash a few years ago with plans to build out a new intercity fiber route to Ashburn along a more westerly route through York PA.  So far, it appears they are still lining up the funding for the bigger project, but have a metro ring on the New York end in place.

RCN Business revealed some high profile business it took care of a few weeks ago.  WBL Services tapped them to provide voice, data, and video delivery for the NFL Draft media center out in Chicago.  They supplied dedicated internet access lines and voice trunks for the three day event at the end of April for the second year in a row.

And EarthLink added further muscle to its wholesale arm with two moves.  They are extending their regional MPLS/Ethernet & Internet Access services to their full national footprint, starting this June.  And they have boosted capacity and added GMPLS technology for their wavelength services while shortening delivery times across the fiber footprint they operate in the eastern half of the country.  I’m still not sure where they wind up, but it’s been quite interesting to watch EarthLink’s resurgence this past year, much of which has come from the carrier side of things.

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  • Frank Luce says:

    EarthLink has a very very long way to go before they become relevant in the traffic engineering, fiber and long haul backbone space. Its a company that prides itself on slash and burn, using the optics of compressed capex, manipulating financials and propping up EBITDA that can’t be sustained long term with the thought they might actually be something more than they are – an irrelevant, disfunctional company with a drunk for a CEO and a loaded Executive team thats done nothing but cut, fire and withhold investments. Is there any wonder why they can’t sell the company and they are losing long time employees?

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