Construction is underway on the second segment of Allied Fiber’s Southeast Route spanning from Jacksonville, Fla., to Atlanta, Ga. This 236-mile build will connect the previously completed 154 mile span from Macon to Valdosta, Ga., to Atlanta in the north and Jacksonville in the south and will complete Allied Fiber’s entire 700-mile Miami, Fla. to Atlanta Southeast Route.
Expected to be operational in mid-2015, the Jacksonville to Atlanta Route will serve network operators of all types including, national, regional and metro carriers, submarine cable networks, wireless backhaul providers, municipal networks and content providers. As a fully integrated network-neutral colocation and dark fiber system, Allied Fiber’s Southeast Route will be the first to enable open interconnection between all network operator types within a single, physical layer long haul system, says the company.
“This announcement is the next step forward in Allied Fiber’s evolution to becoming the first national, open-access, integrated network-neutral colocation and dark fiber superstructure in the United States,” said Hunter Newby, CEO of Allied Fiber. “The Jacksonville to Atlanta segment of our Southeast Route will continue the standard we have set in Florida and for all future segments of our national build where the process and benefits of direct, physical interconnection will be repeated.”
Allied Fiber’s business model and network design was created to facilitate open-access interconnection.?The three primary components of the model are new, high-count dark fiber cables, handholes for lateral splicing and fully integrated, network-neutral colocation facilities. Along the 390 miles of cable between Jacksonville and Atlanta the fiber traverses through dedicated handholes spaced approximately every 3,500 feet and also through the Allied Fiber owned and operated network-neutral colocation facilities located in Fargo, Ga., Hahira, Ga., Ashburn, Ga., Warner Robins, Ga. and Barnesville, Ga. These new sites will bring the total number of Allied Fiber colocation facilities along the Southeast Route up to 11.
According to Allied Fiber, its Southeast Route will provide opportunity for economic stimulation, job growth and improvement in network infrastructure for the states of Florida and Georgia. Numerous regional, metro and municipal fiber networks already exist along the route and will have access to Allied Fiber’s superstructure. “By bringing together long-haul content, enterprise and carrier networks with the local, competitive aggregation and distribution networks in a network-neutral colocation environment, open-access interconnection will flourish as the ‘network-effect’ takes hold,” say company executives.
“For communities in the USA which have struggled to get low cost, high-quality network access, this is a very big step and there will be a positive impact on both network operators and the communities they serve,” said Louis A. Zacharilla, co-founder of the Intelligent Community Forum, a think tank based in New York which studies the impact of broadband on economic and social development worldwide.
The model has worked well in countries that are now among the most competitive largely because this model offers more cost effective rates by introducing choice, continued Zacharilla. “Access to quality, lower costs, increased revenues and improved margins, which Allied Fiber direct-connect options will bring, will allow service providers to make a significant contribution to overall economic growth and productivity gains in cities and communities throughout the country.”
