It’s been yet another busy week in the world of dark fiber. Here are some of the top stories we’ve been following this past week.
A report by Vertical Systems Group found that fiber optics reached 39.3 percent of businesses with 20 or more employees.
"During the past year, network operators narrowed the business fiber gap through construction and acquisitions,” said Rosemary Cochran, principal at Vertical Systems Group. “The majority of new fiber deployments were focused on connecting medium and smaller buildings in the metro areas surrounding major cities across the U.S. Broader accessibility to on-net fiber has started to shake up the services markets. Fiber-based providers and Cable MSOs are capitalizing on the reach and cost advantages of their footprints juxtaposed to legacy infrastructures."
While broadband access has been a national political issue for some time, as evidenced by President Obama’s calls for expanded broadband in his State of the Union addresses; in the D.C. suburbs, it’s a local issue.
“Montgomery County must work with the Internet services providers in our County to achieve gigabit Internet speeds... for the benefit of its residents and the competitiveness of its businesses,” Doug Duncan, who’s running for an executive office there in Maryland. Comcast (News - Alert) is already providing broadband there, with gigabit speeds apparently coming soon. The city of Baltimore is building its own fiber network because carriers like Comcast and Verizon (News - Alert) just aren’t interested.
Google Fiber has shaken up the broadband industry by spurring greater interest in fiber connections. AT&T has apparently responded by building up its own U-Verse network, offering the service in six cities in North Carolina, including Carrboro, Cary, Chapel Hill, Durham, Raleigh, and Winston-Salem to stave off competition from Google (News - Alert).
The Iron Mountain data center might be a product of the Cold War, originally built deep in a mine shaft to survive a nuclear attack, but its new Lumos connection firmly places it into the future of broadband.
“Iron Mountain (News - Alert) is always working to enhance connectivity options,” Iron Mountain vice president of operations Daniel Golding said. “Lumos' reliability, reach, and flexibility make them an excellent partner for wavelength-scale connectivity. We look forward to working with them to expand our customers' bandwidth options.”
Don’t forget to stay tuned as we cover more exciting dark fiber news throughout next week.