Visualizing Fiber Networks: DC Metro, Northern Virginia, and Baltimore

After touring network maps side by side over in the UK and Scandinavia earlier this month, I decided to evolve the idea further but with US metro network maps.  As it works best for the largest metro markets with recognizable geographies, I thought I’d try looking at the combined Ashburn/DC Metro/Baltimore region – for which I have a dozen.  

24/7 Mid-Atlantic	AiNet	Cogent	FiberLight
Fibertech	Level 3	Lumos Networks	Sidera Networks
Summit IG	tw telecom	Windstream	Zayo

Providers with substantial assets that aren’t featured here include the three giant ILECs (Verizon, AT&T, CenturyLink) plus XO.  I’m not deliberately excluding them, I just don’t have any maps of their assets in the region – yet. However, we do have map images from tw telecom (yay!) and Windstream (via the Intellifiber website, which is still functional).  Lumos only hits Ashburn from the west & north and Summit IG from the south, but each seemed like it ought to be there.  For FiberLight, I had to assemble the snapshot from their Ashburn and Baltimore maps to get an overall view – though they have some downtown in DC not captured by this method.

Zayo consolidated a bunch of the region’s fiber with the AboveNet, FiberGate, and LiteCast acquisitions last year, but clearly there are still quite a few competitive fiber footprints in this region with a lot of depth as well as several independent, unconsolidated assets. They are not entirely independent of course, as operators fill in their footprint via others’ dark fiber.  But it gives a sense of the relative depth in this market each of these providers has overall, as well as places where uniqueness lies.