Zayo Deploys 100G to Marseille

Zayo revealed this morning that it has landed an anchor customer for a 100G wavelength rollout in France.  An unnamed ‘global carrier’ has tapped them for backhaul between the AAE-1 and SEA-ME-WE-5 cable landings down in Marseille and Paris.

The arrangement gives Zayo the chance to do something we know they want to do, i.e. take the assets of the former Viatel network and do more with them.  Viatel had operated a national French network at the dark fiber and conduit level since the dot com bubble without ever getting much out of the asset.  After purchasing the company from Digiweb over the winter, Zayo has been moving quickly to do more with those assets, just as they have done after other just about every other purchase throughout their rollup efforts.

Marseille is a key node in any pan-European network, and adding it to Zayo’s 100G-capable endpoints was going to happen sooner or later.  I’m sure they’ll be looking to do the same with other segments of Viatel’s fiber, e.g. the diverse loop to the west through Bourdeaux.

I wonder when Zayo’s next consolidation move will be over in Europe.  They surely must be looking at getting deeper into Germany next if they can only find the right asset.

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Categories: Fiber Networks