Metro Fiber and On-Net Buildings List

64 Comments

On this page, I collect and store information about lit buildings and metro fiber providers primarily based in the US (I’d do other countries if the information were as easily found).  To be on this list, a company must as part of their business hook up buildings or wireless towers to metro fiber rings and either sell services directly to companies in those buildings or sell dark fiber to those that do, and usually in competition with the local ILEC.  Any man-made structure that acts as a traffic aggregation point qualifies, and the services provided at it may be lit or dark.  With no further ado:

There are obviously different business models, geographies, and who knows what. Therefore, this list is not meant to be a race, in fact few of these companies compete directly against each other and all compete against the ILEC primarily. It is just a list showing the general sense of the industry and where each company might fit in it. This information is updated, but infrequently – currently twice a year in June and December.  If you see a company or information that ought to be here or just have a suggestion as to how to improve this page, send me an email at info@telecomramblings.com.

Join the Discussion!

64 Comments So Far


  • Rob Powell says:

    I reverted this list to alphabetical order, I’ll sort it various ways when I use the data in posts.

    • CityFibre says:

      Rob,

      excellant data. City Fibre Holdings in the UK just completed an acquisition of metro fibre provider called i3. They have over 300km of metro fibre in secondary cities in the UK with 325 buildings connected.

    • CityFibre says:

      Rob,

      excellant data. City Fibre Holdings in the UK just completed an acquisition of metro fibre provider called i3. They have over 300km of metro fibre in secondary cities in the UK with 325 buildings connected.

      Will Brayne is the marketing guy with all the stats

  • Rob Powell says:

    Updated data for Abovenet and for the Long Island Fiber Exchange

  • Ben Hilborn says:

    Rob,

    I am not sure how often you update this list. We have surpassed the 1000 building milestone – 1006 and counting. We are adding about 15 new commercial buildings in the Tulsa area each month.

  • Rob Powell says:

    Heh, not nearly as often as you guys update yours apparently.

    Normal updates will be quarterly, when the few public companies on the list generally update their numbers. Other updates will be piecemeal – i.e. when I happen across the information or when someone sends it to me. Hence, I’ve bumped EasyTel to 1006 today.

    Thanks Ben.

  • The_Highwayman says:

    Ben,
    Of your 1006 buildings, how many are single tenant and less than 5,000 sqft?

    I see some of the buildings you have lit, and lets be honest here a single tenant 500 sqft office is not really a building is it!?!?

    • Ben Hilborn says:

      I don’t mind sharing all the facts since it is just something we are proud of. Here is the breakdown. There are 337 high rise / common demarc buildings. There are 233 multi tenant / strip center office – retail buildings that each require their own fiber point. Then we have 437 stand alone buildings that are larger businesses that have a telecom budget worthy of building fiber to them. Car Dealers, Hotels, Churches, Restaurants, Big Retail. Really, any decent commercial property in Tulsa is on the radar. If you go to maps.live.com and put the address in you can get a nice picture view of each building. We certainly don’t have single tenant buildings less than 5000 square feet unless the owner paid us some bucks to bring the fiber in. Each building indeed is a real building and yes, it was expensive to build!

      • Ben Hilborn says:

        Updated Breakdown of Fiber LIT Commercial Buildings in the greater Tulsa area. Demand for reliable, high bandwidth continues to rise. Bringing utility construction in house has helped the continued growth in a down economy.

        Total number of LIT Commercial buildings – 1755

        Total number of high rise / multiple tenant – 515

        Total number of strip center / office – 437

        Total number of single occupant business – 803

        http://easytel.com/coverage/buildings.aspx

  • northern_wind says:

    I don’t have insight to the other private companies on the list, but I can assure you that Lightower’s lit buildings are “lit”. Density is the key here.

  • SS says:

    thanks a ton …this is really cool…is there any way of getting to how much backbone fiber players have? esp with qwest, sprint and lvlt in quasi play….

  • Frank Coluccio says:

    Rob, the story behind the Wilshire Connection (WilCon) of L.A. is interesting. It mirrors some other emergent players on your metro list. You may want to keep an eye on this outfit for future inclusion on the list. Yesterday I posted links to a four-part series of interviews with WilCon’s founder and CEO Eric Bender, here:

    http://siliconinvestor.advfn.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=26085246

    nb, a podcast link to the complete interview series is available at the bottom of each page cited.

    Frank

  • DaveRusin says:

    Rob: Any idea if carriers are counting towers as buildings?

    • Rob Powell says:

      Most do, I know Zayo does. And I do as well. Basically any revenue generating, non-residential structure that is on-net and produces traffic counts for this particular list. I wish I could break it down by tower, enterprise buildings of different classes, carrier hotels, etc – but I’d never get that kind of data from enough places.

  • Pat Mahony says:

    Thanks Rob, for the taking the time to put this information together. It’s nice to have it available at a glance. I wanted to mention, on behalf of FiberLight, that we also have metro networks in Nashville, Birmingham, Virginia and Maryland.

    • Ben Hilborn says:

      EasyTEL continues to grow its Metro Fiber Network in Tulsa metro area. We take care of commercial customers only. Of the 1155 “lit” buildings here is our breakdown based on class of building. Large Multi Tenant – 375…. Business Strip Center that each tenant has its own Optical Network Terminal – 269…. Single Occupant Businesses like Hotels, Churches, Large Retail, Industrial – 513. We continue to sweep the business sector by offering superior broadband solutions over the incumbent LEC and Cable Company.

  • Anonymous says:

    Rob, you may have missed SuddenLink as a metro player dba CoStreet. They have a onnet building list and high level maps.

    http://www.costreet.com/products/index.html

  • Telco Coax says:

    Why don’t you include the cable providers on this list?

    Comcast, Time Warner and COX certainly have a significant number of lit buildings in the metro areas they serve.

    • Rob Powell says:

      I have been looking for that data for two years now. If you know where I can find it for any of the cable providers, please send me a link! (I do have Cablevision’s Optimum Lightpath on the list already of course.)

    • Ben Hilborn says:

      We compete with the incumbent cable TV provider in the Tulsa Metro area. This has remained an elusive number. My guess is that there are so many more buildings outfitted with COAX vs Fiber Direct that this number is kept close to the chest. They also install something called (Hybrid Fiber Coax) but those clients are still limited by whatever the cable modem can produce. Since 100% of EasyTEL clients have a a pure fiber optic service they can get a 10mb, 100mb, or 1000mb synchrounous data pipe which a cable modem simply cannot do at this time.

      • Anonymous says:

        Bullshit. Thats not what hybrid fiber coax means.

        • Clevus says:

          UMM, So what does it mean?

        • Anonymous says:

          yes, please provide additional insight……

          • Ben Hilborn says:

            Wikipedia says: Hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) is a telecommunications industry term for a broadband network that combines optical fiber and coaxial cable. It has been commonly employed globally by cable television operators since the early 1990s.

            EasyTEL Communications in Tulsa has built fiber direct to over 1,869 commercial buildings and we are adding 15 + buildings each month to meet the demand for 100mbs, 1000mbs data circuits.

  • Rob Powell says:

    Updated Lightower’s numbers following their closing on Veroxity today. Also updated Zayo’s numbers based on their latest following AGL – that will change again with AFS of course. Finally, added Wilshire Connection in central LA to the list of fiber providers.

    • Rob Powell says:

      Oops, I updated the wrong sheet – fixed that now so you can see those changes. I also updated Optimum Lightpath’s numbers based on new data.

  • Tomas says:

    Great stuff, Rob. I have been using this info so I’m glad you’re updating it periodically. One thing, according to tw telecom’s earnings release, they’re at 27,500 fiber route miles, not the 20K you show here. FYI.

    • Rob Powell says:

      Actually, TW Telecom’s 27K route miles include 7K of intercity fiber, which I discount for this table where possible. You can find the 20K number in their filings as well.

      • Kevin says:

        May I ask exactly why inter-city fiber is not included? Is it less indicative of a CLEC’s reach in a sort of oxymoronic way?

        • Rob Powell says:

          In this case, I’m just trying to isolate the one type of fiber, as a mile of intercity fiber and a mile of metro fiber mean very different things – adding them makes a less meaningful number. However, I think the time may have come to make a parallel list with intercity fiber…

  • K says:

    What about Time Warner Cable Business Class?

    • Rob Powell says:

      I have not yet managed to find sufficient information on TWC’s lit footprint. If you know where it might be found, do tell!

  • Fiber lit buildings are the best places to setup business
    because the fiber optical network is already present and it is cost effective. These fiber lit buildings are extrmely advantageous for business organizations.

  • DR says:

    Nice list – hope to see it continue to develop. Enmax Envision actually serve Calgary not Toronto and their network length is 735 km not miles.

  • Brian Scully says:

    Rob, since your response to Dave Rusin in ’09, have you found any other companies that breakdown their On-Net building similar to Zayo (FTT, Enterprise, etc)? I see Zayo FTT business is about 45% of the total.

  • Anony says:

    Rob, do you have this on-net building list? It’s mostly telco centric and at a glance look to me to leave out much of their enterprise business. Pretty good list none the less. As always, with KDL, check that the fiber and electronics are actually there before committing to it.

  • Anony says:

    Check this out.

  • Anony says:

    Not sure if my post is delayed. Apologies in advance if I double post.

    Check this out. http://www.kdlinc.com/files/WIN_POP_List.pdf

  • Rob Powell says:

    Added GTS Central Europe to the list. I had no idea their metro presence went so far. Along with the 3616 fiber-fed buildings are apparently more than 9000 served via wireless connectivity.

  • Anonymous says:

    LVLT had 8100 buildings on-net according to their PR in November 2009. How many did GLBC add to that, if any. TIA

    • Rob Powell says:

      The company has not yet revealed this number, though I’ve asked them several times about it. We don’t have a recent on-net building count from Level 3.

  • Florida says:

    Please let me know how we can load our fiber route information to your website and the on-net buildings. Thanks

    • Anony says:

      Email your map to Rob and provide a link to your on-net building list. Looking forward to seeing it.

  • Arnab Chakraborty says:

    Who are the customers of these companies?

  • Anonymous says:

    Would love to have the option to export this to Excel or make it easier to copy/paste

  • Updated stats for Fiberlight, Optimum Lightpath, Lightower

  • This is a great post with some excellent data. The chart representing metro fiber and fiber lit buldings is very convenient to have at quick glance and great to bookmark to refer back to later on.

  • anonymous says:

    Great resource – When do you think the next update would be available?

  • Micah Sachs says:

    EU Networks updated their number of on-net buildings to 945. See http://eunetworks.listedcompany.com/newsroom/20130520_171510_H23_C7AED74961FE769B48257B71000778B2.1.pdf.

  • Paul says:

    Congratulations to ALL these companies for their success in signing and reaching new customers. Even small steps in extending network require a great deal of focus and effort when they depend on cooperation from the ILEC and electric utility. You all are providing a public service not only by providing your services to your customers but also by motivating the ILEC’s and CATV companies to upgrade their own levels of performance. I’d recommend a Federal holiday honoring all these companies!

  • Steve says:

    The lit building list is blank

    • Rob Powell says:

      The list is hosted on Google Docs, and occasionally that is not available whether because of location (China for example) or a temporary glitch on Google’s end. Looks fine to me today.

  • Anonymous says:

    Rob, Here is the Comcast data

    Company – Comcast

    Metro Route Miles – 600k+

    National Route Miles – 147k+

    On-net Buildings – 90k+

    Route Miles per Building – 6

    Avg Metro Fiber Count – High

    Main Markets –
    Atlanta
    Baltimore
    Boston
    Chicago
    Denver
    Detroit
    Harrisburg, PA
    Hartford
    Houston
    Indianapolis
    Jacksonville
    Miami
    Nashville
    New Jersey
    Oakland
    Philadelphia
    Pittsburgh
    Portland
    Sacramento
    Salt Lake City
    San Francisco
    San Jose
    Seattle
    Washington D.C.
    Western New England
    Minneapolis/St.Paul

    Last updated 4/2014

  • Anonymous says:

    3/11/14: TWC Update – “TWCBC owns and operates an extensive, 147,000 fiber-route-mile network infrastructure in more than 30 major metro markets nationwide with over 58,000 fiber-lit buildings and 14,000 connected cell towers.”

  • Clara says:

    Rob, do you think this page can get refreshed? -Clara (ITU)

  • Update for DQE Communications. We have built backbone into N. Central West Virginia and expanded all around W. Pennsylvania.
    Current stats are: 3247 Route Miles, 1616 on-net buildings, 112 business parks, 15 data centers.

  • Tom Harris says:

    Rob,

    You need to add some providers from: https://broadbandnow.com/fastest-providers

    Also, why not have a overall ISP board. Top speed, top building count, etc etc?

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