Lumen Technologies has expanded its network with NorthLine, a low latency fiber route that directly connects Seattle to Minneapolis.
NorthLine will integrate with Lumen’s national network, enabling customers to extend connectivity beyond the route and build seamless cross-country paths on newly built fiber infrastructure. The route will support 100G and 400G wavelength services and be delivered through Lumen RapidRoutes — pre-engineered routes with validated capacity and a 20-day service level agreement for qualified deployments.
According to Lumen, NorthLine will enable customers to move faster from design to deployment and scale connectivity more predictably across key U.S. markets. Expected to be available by the end of 2026, NorthLine is designed to give enterprises, cloud providers, and AI innovators a more direct route option between key markets, simplifying architectures and reducing reliance on fragmented, multi-provider infrastructure.
NorthLine will deliver several advantages:
- Adds geographic diversity across the northern U.S.: The route creates an additional path for moving data between regions, to improve latency, resiliency, and traffic distribution.
- Aligns to emerging data center and power corridors: NorthLine will be built near key markets where new power capacity is fueling AI and cloud infrastructure growth.
- Extends into Lumen’s national network: It will enable seamless, cross-country connectivity without relying on multiple providers, while supporting transpacific traffic flows from West Coast entry points into central U.S. markets.
- Enables simpler, more resilient network architectures: NorthLine supports more direct routing and reduces operational complexity across distributed environments.
NorthLine demonstrates Lumen’s ongoing commitment to enhancing fiber infrastructure across strategic growth corridors. As demand for AI-scale connectivity increases, Lumen is building routes that align to how data is moving today — across clouds, between data centers, and into emerging compute regions.
