Birch expands metro fiber footprint into 12 new U.S. cities

Birch Communications has deepened the reach of its fiber network into 12 U.S. cities, expanding its on-net fiber building footprint to 320,000 buildings.

Supporting up to 1 Gbps symmetrical speeds, BirchLink Metro-Fiber services will now be available in Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, El Paso, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, San Antonio, San Diego and Washington, D.C.

This is just one of several new expansions Birch has planned for this year and next.

David Gibson, vice president of business development at Birch, said in a release that it "will continue to aggressively expand the reach and power of our Metro-Fiber footprint within key markets and geographic locations to meet the growing needs of our customers."

Throughout the rest of 2015 and 2016, Birch plans to continue expanding its fiber network presence in its existing and additional markets. The emphasis will continue to be on extending its Metro-Fiber footprint in a mix of Tier 1 and Tier 2 markets.

Fiber network expansion into major U.S. metros and more buildings has been an ongoing theme for Birch.

Having this extra fiber on hand will enable Birch to better address its customers MPLS and Ethernet needs. Birch can provide MPLS through any service delivery method on its nationwide IP network with more than 600 points of presence (POPs) in 22 states, spanning 31,000 fiber-route miles and through network-to-network interfaces (NNIs).

Earlier this year, the service provider completed a fiber network extension into four other cities -- Dallas, Houston, Denver and Los Angeles markets -- extending its facilities into an additional 46 buildings.

Fiber is only one part of Birch's service equation.

The service provider continues to be bullish on copper-based DSL to serve small to medium business (SMB) customers with speeds up to 24 Mbps. It recently completed the extension of its BirchNet Broadband footprint by over 60 percent, giving it coverage in 14 states across and adjacent to the Northern Tier, Rockies and Pacific Northwest.

For more:
- see the release

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