Friday Bytes: MDM, Zayo, Comcast Business

New transatlantic capacity, new longhaul fiber, and some private wireless:

The North Atlantic may soon have another pair of fiberopic cables. MDM announced yesterday its plans to build Narwhal 1 and Narwhal 2. The first will land on Long Island, New York and in Galway on the west coast of Ireland. The second will land in New Jersey and on he south coast of Ireland. From Ireland it will connect to other systems like the Pisces system. If all goes well, MDM projects an RFS date of Q3 2029 for the first, and 2030 for the second. Funding of some $500M will come from private equity and industry partner involvement.

Zayo is teaming up with NVIDIA as it helps build out infrastructure in support of the rapidly growing AI ecosystem. Zayo says it is building 8,000 miles of new longh-haul fiber as part of the collaboration, expanding bandwidth to key AI factory sites. Many experts see long-haul fiber availability as a potential bottleneck to the growth everyone is projecting, a prospect that will finally fulfill the dreams of the dot-com era of nearly 30 years ago now.

Comcast Business says it has deployed a private wireless network for Smartlink. Comcast’s solution replaces overlapping DAS, WiFi, and other dedicated operations with a CBRS-based carrier-grade Neutral Host cellular system. The project took place at Smartlink’s HQ in downtown Annapolis MD. Comcast Business sees opportunity to take its Private Wireless capabilities to more enterprises.

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