Allied Fiber begins building major nationwide dark fibre cable system

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

US wholesale carrier Allied Fiber has finalised agreements with financial partners and right-of-way owners to build a new nationwide, network-neutral, high-count dark fibre cable system integrated with colocation facilities and wireless tower sites. Construction of the first 1,300 route-mile phase linking New York, Chicago and Ashburn, VA is already underway and will cost approximately USD140 million. The completed dark fibre network will span 11,548 route miles ringing the entire US, to be built in six phases, linking subsea cable landing points, major data centres, colocation interconnection facilities, rural networks and wireless towers. Allied has secured several agreements with railroad companies including Norfolk Southern Railway and other major right-of-way owners.

In a statement, Allied Fiber says it is addressing increasing national broadband demand by providing access to new dark fibre, colocation facilities and fibre-fed wireless towers on a network-neutral, open-access basis throughout the US. The user community for these physical-layer services includes submarine cable systems, large international and domestic wireline and wireless carriers and network operators, small rural carriers, cooperatives and cable television companies. ‘We created this system to address the numerous backhaul and capacity issues that exist in the marketplace today,’ affirmed Hunter Newby, CEO of Allied Fiber. TeleGeography’s Stephan Beckert commented that the project is one of the most notable US long-haul network rollouts in years.

Allied Fiber has implemented a new, multi-duct design for intermediate access to the long-haul fibre duct through a parallel short-haul fibre duct all along the route. This enables all points between the major cities, including wireless towers and rural networks, to gain access to the dark fibre. In addition, the Allied Fiber neutral colocation facilities, located approximately every 60 miles along the route, accommodate and encourage a multi-tenant interconnection environment integrated with fibre that does not yet exist in the US on this scale, according to the release. Rory Cutaia, executive chairman of Allied, added: ‘This network specifically manages competing systems in a common, carrier-neutral infrastructure offering ownership and management of individual fibre pairs.’

The first phase of the system will provide a combined 648 dark fibres, 19 colocation facilities (700+ square feet each) and 300 tower sites all integrated into one system from one provider. With planned, direct connections to the submarine cable systems linking the Atlantic, Caribbean, Latin American and Pacific cables, Allied Fiber says it will also provide express routing of traffic through the US on the most advanced fibre types available. Building new, shortest path, physical duct and fibre routes combined with modern fibre is designed for lower latencies as well as higher capacities to be achieved between these points.

Allied Fiber has selected Michels Communications, Henkels & McCoy and Adesta to construct and install various portions of the system. Phase-one deployment is scheduled to be completed in early fourth quarter of 2010. The new 432-count, long haul cable coupled with the 216-count, short-haul cable will be a composite of Single-Mode (SMF) and Non-Zero Dispersion Shifted (NZDSF) fibres.

The company is currently accepting customer agreements for fibre and colocation in the system.

Source: TeleGeography