Dark fiber continues to light up the news this week as more and more communities sign on for high speed networks.

For example, Integra has expanded its long-haul fiber optic network route by 865 miles, directly connecting Salt Lake City, Utah, to Sacramento, California. This route will deliver high-bandwidth, low-latency transport to Integra metro networks in those cities as well as Reno, Nevada, and the San Francisco Bay Area via Integra's 100 Gigabit-per-second (Gbps) long-haul fiber backbone. Integra's long-haul network now exceeds 6,000 route miles across the Western United States. It is the first of many strategic investments in network expansion Integra plans for 2014. The company is accepting orders for access to the network segment for new and existing customers, backed by Integra's commitment to superior support and industry-leading service level agreements.

Across the country, one of the most renowned communication providers in the U.S., FairPoint Communications, has expanded its Broadband Internet services for a number of residences and communities in the New England region. Some 10,400 homes and businesses all across the state of Maine, according to the company, are benefiting from the expansion. To be able to meet with this rising demand, FairPoint made significant investments in upgrading its IP-based network in northern New England; since 2008, the company has invested more than $700 million in network upgrade, which included building thousands of miles of new fiber across the region among others.

In other news, Emulex Corporation, a provider of network connectivity and network monitoring  solutions, has partnered with Brocade (News - Alert), a provider of enterprise networking solutions, to jointly develop a new generation of advanced Gen 6 (32Gb) Fiber Channel networking solutions. Both Emulex (News - Alert) and Brocade have been delivering innovative networking solutions to meet the emerging needs of the industry. Examples of these efforts include the Brocade ClearLink diagnostics and Emulex Gen 5 Flash Services including ExpressLane and Emulex CrossLink. The partnership now aims to deliver increased network performance, higher scalability and improved reliability for the highly virtualized data center.

There’s news daily about what’s happening in the Dark Fiber community; be sure to check in and find out!