INCOMPAS 2016 News: Optelian, Midco, Lumos/EdgeConneX

By Bruce Christian

This news roundup showcases major partnerships announced at this weeks’ INCOMPAS competitive telecom event.

Optelian Selects Jabil Circuit to Deliver Next-Gen Products, Services

Optelian FLEX Architecture is used by more than 200 service providers, network operators and enterprises seeking more modular, intuitive and cost-effective service delivery.

To that end, Optelian is taking advantage of Jabil Circuit Inc.’s manufacturing and photonics capabilities to reduce product costs, increase operational efficiencies and drive continued product innovation.

“With Jabil as our manufacturing partner, Optelian can grow and scale in ways we couldn’t before,” said Dave Weymouth, Optelian’s co-founder and CEO. “We have the agility to bid on different and larger business while trusting Jabil to support our product design, engineering, supply chain and manufacturing needs.”

Jabil said Optelian chose it for the role in part because of the former’s commitment to the optical industry, as evidenced by Jabil’s June 2015 acquisition of photonics company AOC Technologies. Jabil continues to recruit key photonics talent around the world, including for a local operation alongside Optelian’s team in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Optelian expects to use Jabil to support its entire product lifecycle management. Additionally, the company plans to take advantage of Jabil’s intelligent global digital supply chain with predictive analytics to reduce component lead times and increase supply chain accuracy. The company also anticipates the move to a complete sourcing model with Jabil to accelerate business scaling.

Jabil is an electronic product company providing electronics design, production and product management services to global electronics and technology companies.

Optelian is a full-service provider of optical networking solutions that move customer data reliably at the lowest total cost of ownership. The company offers a comprehensive portfolio of products to provide a dynamic infrastructure that delivers multiprotocol services. The Optelian FLEX Architecture comprises modular elements that are focused on the optical and circuit network layers.

The architecture enables the deployment of networking services from access to core, passive to packet, and 100M to 100G. Optelian provides the transport infrastructure – the foundation for packet networks.

With agile design capabilities and North American engineering, Optelian’s solutions fulfil any network requirements. Optelian’s professional services ensure networks are optimally planned and deployed. These service offerings along with 24×7 customer technical support ensure that Optelian delivers the technology and services to enable next generation networks.

For information contact info@optelian.com.

Midco Extends Fiber Network in Minnesota with Arvig Agreement

Midco has extended its fiber-optic network reach to more locations in Minnesota through a cooperative relationship with Arvig.

The arrangement will help Midco business customers take advantage of growing opportunities to reach Minnesota communities, such as Duluth, Marshall, the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area, Rochester, St. Cloud and more.

The Northern Plains Network already spans 8,400 fiber route miles throughout Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. It connects to the Arvig network through multiple interconnect points, which adds 4,000 fiber route miles available as Type 2 network extensions.

“We’ve heard increased interest from our current and prospective customers about wanting to make more connections to cities and towns that Arvig covers. This relationship allows those businesses the chance to still have Midco as their single point of contact – even if they want to connect off the Midco core network in this region,” said Scott Smidt, vice president of business engineering and operations at Midco.

“Our relationship with Midco is mutually beneficial,” added Dave Schornack, Arvig’s director of Business Development. “We look forward to working with Midco to provide connections to customers who are growing and expanding their business networks.”

Because Midco has certified the Arvig network, business customers needing various fiber and networking solutions in the Arvig geographic area will still receive the same service level commitments and reliability they expect from Midco Business and its core network. As a result, these customers can enjoy simplified due diligence as they extend their reach throughout the Upper Midwest.

Established in 1950, Arvig has grown from a small, family-owned telephone company to one of the largest independent full-service telecommunications providers in the nation. Arvig continually reinvests in technology and network operations to continuously deliver next-generation communication services to businesses in Minnesota and North Dakota.

In addition to traditional telecom services, Arvig also provides network cabling, security systems, managed voice solutions, telecom and utility construction, answering services and a full suite of digital media services.

Midco Business is a provider of Internet, networking, Ethernet, phone, cable TV, advertising and carrier services in the Upper Midwest. Businesses of all sizes rely on Midco’s Northern Plains Network, an 8,400-mile fiber-optic network connected to more than 40 regional and national fiber networks.

Scalable to eight terabits per second, the Midco network earned MEF 2.0 certification for meeting high industry standards for an Ethernet network.

For more information, visit  www.midco.com/business to learn more about Midco and how the company gives back to the communities it serves.

Lumos Networks Lights up EdgeConneX’s Edge Data

Lumos Networks Corp., a fiber-based infrastructure provider in the mid-Atlantic region, announced it has extended fiber connectivity into the EdgeConneX Edge Data Center in Norfolk, Va.

This marks the 35th data center, including seven company-owned colocation facilities, connected to the Lumos Networks’ 8,607-route-mile fiber network and the first in the company’s expansion market of Norfolk/Hampton Roads, Va.

The company’s network expansion announced in November 2014, which also includes the Richmond, Va., metro markets, is estimated to increase the total company’s enterprise addressable market by $135 million, an increase of 60 percent compared to its core markets.

Lumos Networks already has secured one customer contract into the EdgeConneX facility and has begun to market its capabilities for secure advanced fiber connectivity to its approximately 1,200 enterprise customers.

The EdgeConneX facility, located at 3800 Village Ave., Suite C in Norfolk, is a tier-3, high availability data center with more than 100,00 square feet total and an expansion capability to 10MW’s.

“Lumos’ connectivity complements our mission to place edge data center infrastructure as close to end users as possible in order to maximize performance,” said Clint Heiden, chief commercial officer, at EdgeConneX. “Our content and cloud provider customers can combine EdgeConneX premium facilities with Lumos premium network service for a high-speed data delivery infrastructure that’s right in the backyard of Norfolk-area Internet users. With their strong footprint in Norfolk, throughout Virginia, and across the mid-Atlantic region, Lumos is an ideal connectivity partner for us.”

This data center connection leverages Lumos Networks’ 822-fiber-route-mile expansion in the state of Virginia, including 270 route miles of dense fiber (average metro core strand count of 144) in the Hampton Roads/Norfolk markets.

Hampton Roads, which is the 37th largest metropolitan service area, encompasses the cities of Hampton, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Newport News and Virginia Beach.

Lumos offers Ethernet and wavelength services into the EdgeConneX facility. The Ethernet service is certified by the Metro Ethernet Forum and available at select speeds from 3Mbps to 10Gbps. The wavelength service supports 1Gbps, 2.5Gbps, 10Gbps and 100Gbps speeds.

“I am pleased to announce that the EdgeConneX Edge Data Center is the first data center connected to our fiber network in our Norfolk/Hampton Roads expansion market,” said Tim Biltz, CEO of Lumos Networks. “Our Enterprise customers continue to demand access to high quality data centers across our footprint and we look forward to expanding our relationship with EdgeConneX.”

For more information, visit the EdgeConneX Internet of Everywhere at edgeconnex.com, or go to www.lumosnetworks.com.