On Friday, Zayo announced plans for two new long haul dark fiber networks from Columbus, Ohio to Ashburn, Virginia and Dallas, Texas to Atlanta, Georgia.

The Columbus to Ashburn network expansion will add approximately 400-route miles of high-capacity fiber and is expected to provide the lowest latency between the two cities. With its central location and proximity to major population centers, Columbus an important data center hub.  At the other end of the route, Ashburn and Northern Virginia known as “Data Center Alley,” has the largest concentrations of data centers in the world.

Zayo says that the 870-mile Dallas to Atlanta route will connect two key metro markets with a direct, low latency route. Dallas and Atlanta are major population centers and top 10 data center markets.

“To meet continued demand for dark fiber, we are building unique new routes between strategic markets,” said Jack Waters, CTO and president of Fiber Solutions at Zayo. “These expansions will provide superior options for direct, high-capacity, latency-sensitive paths connecting data and population centers to cloud platforms and end users.”

These fiber expansions continue other Zayo expansions announced earlier this year http://www.truepulse.com/zayo-expanding-dark-fibre-in-montreal/

This news is positive not only for Zayo, but for the telecom equipment sector.  The surest way to anticipate equipment sales is when a carrier has a new fiber route that needs to be lit.  Furthermore, it’s a healthy sign for the economy overall that Zayo needs increasing routes and capacity.

For more details on the announcement, see Zayo press release at https://www.zayo.com/news/zayo-announces-two-new-long-haul-fiber-routes/