Zayo Adds Southeastern Fiber Breadth

Announcing yet another expansion of its network footprint, Zayo has expanded with new longhaul routes in the southeastern USA. They’ve added long-haul fiber that will bring the markets of Raleigh NC, Richmond VA, Tampa FL, and Orlando FL on-net, and add diverse connectivity down to Miami – a market they got a toe in from the AboveNet deal.

For a long time the southeastern US was one of Zayo’s weak spots outside of Atlanta and Tennessee. But not any more, given last year’s purchase of US Carrier, their recent metro fiber buildout plans in Jacksonville, and this longhaul expansion bringing many of the remaining major regional markets on-net.

I still think they may make a move on FiberLight or even FPL Fibernet, each of which would give them more fiber in Tampa, Miami, and various Texas markets, or perhaps on DukeNet for deeper Carolinas coverage.  Either would help them complete their southern invasion. But the balance has seemed to be shifting more toward organic buildouts of late, though not entirely of course – they did just buy Access up in Minnesota.

Yesterday’s southeastern expansion is almost certainly of the opportunistic dark fiber IRU variety. I wonder who is selling dark fiber down there these days.

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Categories: Fiber Networks · Metro fiber