FirstLight Fiber's 36,000-mile fiber extension targets wireless backhaul, enterprise opportunities

FirstLight Fiber is enhancing its fiber diet by adding 36,000 miles into New York's Westchester, Rockland and Orange counties, enabling it to fulfill a mix of wireless backhaul and enterprise service opportunities.

Built in response to what it says is market and customer demand to expand its offerings closer to New York City, the network extension will be within close proximity to over 4,000 cell towers and enterprise locations.

The new fiber will be able to support a range of services, including everything from dark fiber, Ethernet and wavelength services from 10 Mbps to 100 Gbps and Internet access.

By completing this expansion, FirstLight's fiber network now spans 260,000 fiber miles throughout five states including New York, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, and Massachusetts. It also provides diverse connectivity to five FirstLight data centers throughout the region.

This network expansion is well timed, particularly for wireless operators whose appetite for dark fiber-based backhaul for small cells is growing. A number of wireless operators such as Sprint (NYSE: S) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) have expressed continued interest in dark fiber-based backhaul.

Sprint said during its fourth quarter earnings call that it would use a mix of 2.5 GHz microwave spectrum and dark fiber, which it said would give it more control over the speed and capacity of the backhaul circuit, for example.

 For more:
- see the release

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