Generally, whenever there's an announcement of new fiber installations going into place, it's good news, and usually it's good news for both the consumer and the company stepping up the installation. This time around, it's an agreement between Allied Fiber and Telefonica (News - Alert), bringing a new dark fiber agreement to the United States.

The Allied Fiber / Telefonica agreement calls for a 20 year agreement that gives Telefonica a greater presence in the United States, using Allied Fiber (News - Alert)'s dark fiber to connect various submarine cable landing stations, as well as peering points, throughout the country. Interconnection and neutral colocation services will also be on hand, giving network operators some new options in terms of operations. Telefonica can already be found in the United States thanks to Sam-1, a submarine cable that connects the United States to Latin America, at last report, as well as its PCCS cable system extending over 3,700 miles. With the new agreement in place, Telefonica can provide better connection between the United States and Colombia, Equador, and much of Central America, a development that will likely help on both sides of the spectrum.

Allied Fiber CEO Hunter Newby (News - Alert) offered up some comment on the new arrangement, noting that Telefonica was “...a marquee customer for Allied Fiber...,” and that Allied Fiber was glad to be working with a major global service provider like Telefonica. Telefonica, meanwhile, seemed equally pleased, as its IT, network and platforms director Serafin Borrego noted “With this infrastructure, Telefonica will increase reliability and diversity through its global network. This will result in improved quality of experience for final customers.”

There's a lot of value in an agreement like this. Not only does Allied Fiber get the added advantage of helping Telefonica bolster its presence in the United States, but Telefonica gets to expand its reach in a major market, which is generally valuable by most any measure. With most every breed of data service in rapidly-increasing demand worldwide, being able to add extra capacity is the kind of thing that helps improve reliability, diversity, and even security thanks to the ability to bring in more tools to provide same. Getting connectivity to large parts of the United States where the population isn't so dense is a difficult, and in many cases expensive, proposition, but the more that can be done to get these sections wired—and hopefully, arrangements like this one between Telefonica and Allied Fiber will help get the job done. Some have projected that wireless connectivity was to be the ultimate key in establishing rural Internet access, and Telefonica may well prove to be a part of that concept going forward.

The rise of a host of new technologies are largely dependent on available bandwidth, everything from streaming video to Web-based real time communications (WebRTC) to the mobile workforce and beyond. That means a lot of demand, but where will the supply come from? From things like the Telefonica / Allied Fiber agreement, and hopefully, plenty more like these to follow.