Zayo has announced a series of advancements for making its independent fiber network even more powerful for customers. This marks Zayo’s largest organic network expansion to date. It comprises best-in-class long-haul dark fiber, 400 Gbps (400G) upgrades and subsea routes spread across the globe. This effort is undertaken using an investment of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars and will continue development of new and upgraded routes globally over the next 18 months.
“Enterprises of all sizes are entering a transformational, yet highly complex time as they face a convergence of factors ranging from digital-first implementation and the future of work to rapid cloudification and edge computing. At Zayo, we recognize that each of these advancements is only as successful as the connectivity empowering it,” said Andrés Irlando, President, Zayo. “We are committed to continuous expansion and advancing our network and capabilities, and we remain focused on exceeding customer expectations now while positioning them for a future they are just now imagining.”
By investing in a range of long-haul dark fiber routes, Zayo aims massive growth in long-haul capacity to meet current and future customer needs. The entirely underground new dark fiber routes include Cleveland-Columbus, Dallas- Atlanta, Denver- Salt Lake City, Las Vegas- Phoenix and aims to give customers the highest level of physical security and reliability.
Dave Schaeffer, CEO of Cogent Communications and a Zayo customer, said the following about the network growth: “Cogent Communications is at the cutting edge of the IP / communications industry, and we are constantly expanding our footprint to new facilities and new markets. Zayo’s future-ready, reliable dark fiber network with route diversity is an essential component in our network design to deliver best-in-class, scalable, and reliable IP services that our customers have come to expect from Cogent. We look forward to leveraging Zayo’s dark fiber footprint to grow our network in the future.”
One of the first providers to deliver a 400G network across the US and Europe, Zayo’s 75,000-mile backbone network is 400G enabled until now. A majority will be completed by the end of 2022.
This enhanced capacity will enable customers to scale as they start adopting upcoming technologies like 5G, cloud adoption, IoT, AI, edge computing, and automation. Zayo had lately completed a subsea 400G trial successfully with Equinix in the UK, thereby helping latter prepare for the growing need to move larger volumes of data faster than ever before. Zayo’s key new 400G routes are Dallas- Atlanta, Chicago- New York, Denver- Chicago, Denver- Salt Lake City, Los Angeles- Phoenix- Dallas, Salt Lake City- San Francisco Bay Area, San Francisco Bay Area- Los Angeles.
“Zayo is quickly differentiating itself as a market leader when it comes to network diversity, capacity and future-readiness,” said Will Townsend, Vice President & Principal Analyst, Networking & Security at Moor Insights & Strategy. “A proof point is its new coast-to-coast route that traverses nearly a straight line across the U.S., delivering 400G performance that supports low-latency-intensive applications such as financial trading. Zayo’s recent network build-outs represent an investment in future capacity for its customers.”
Zayo recently set a record for the world’s longest known terrestrial 800G optical wavelength in a commercial network which totals to 1,044.51 km.
Along with growth in long-haul capacity and 400G, Zayo has also made significant investments in a new, customer-centric model designed to improve the customer experience. For this, Zayo has employed over 200 additional operations staff who would focus on service delivery, service assurance and network performance. Zayo’s improved systems drive higher first-touch resolution, and its enhanced network management tools and processes enable proactive event detection and prevention. Over the previous year, Zayo’s on-time delivery performance has increased by 20% and has reduced average install intervals by 10%.
Zayo will continue to invest in highly scalable transatlantic routes, which will give customers a one-stop-shop for a subsea network connecting North America and Europe without a single point of failure. ZEUS cable, which was previously announced by Zayo, is nearing completion and will be the deepest and most reliable connection between London and Amsterdam. Zayo’s subsea routes are also providing seamless access between the U.S. and Canada to Zayo’s dense European fiber network that spans eight countries with over 17,000 route miles.
Read next: NTT DATA and NTT to combine their IT Services organizations outside Japan
