Alternative fiber operator Zayo Group (news, filings) announced an expansion of their Dallas footprint. As I recall, Zayo’s footprint in Dallas originally came as a part of its second acquisition of wholesale assets from CityNet. However, until now, Zayo had done very little with the asset. A quick perusal of their public on-net building list revealed a single, very lonely building.
With this new expansion however, Zayo has brought that total to five carrier hotels and eight local switching offices. That brings their route mileage in the Dallas area to 84 miles, which according to a bit of digging appears to be just a few extra miles beyond the 80 or so they bought from CityNet. In other words, this was the low hanging fruit right next to that fiber footprint. But of course, where else does one start when one has lots of unused fiber – certainly not by building new loops. No doubt there will be more to come though, now that they have started to move in this market.
Seems like a lot of eyes in the fiber sector are focusing on Texas these days. FPL FiberNet made a big move there by purchasing Grande’s longhaul and metro fiber across the state. Then there were two moves by Alpheus, first with FiberLight and soon thereafter with 360Networks, and of course FiberLight has been putting significant dollars into the state for some time. Both XO and Level 3 beefed up their assets in southern Texas last year as well, and of course TW Telecom wins regular multi-site deals in the state. Must be something in the water down there.
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Categories: Metro fiber
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Seems as though Zayo continues to make noise about an imminent ( within 6 months) merger or major change based on original investors looking to cash out.
http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_17544885
Abovenet is mentioned by a familar Denver based analyst
Hey, you never know. Certainly there would be synergies in an AboveNet/Zayo merger, but I’m more partial to a combination of either one with the XO assets if anyone can pry them loose from Icahn.