Lumos Networks brings dark fiber to EdgeConneX's data center in Norfolk/Hampton, Va. region

Lumos Networks has brought its dark fiber connectivity into the EdgeConneX Edge Data Center in Norfolk, Va., marking the 35th data center in the region and the first data center Lumos has connected to in its Norfolk/Hampton Roads, Va., expansion market.

In its data center arsenal, Lumos now has seven company owned co-location facilities and agreements with 28 other data center providers connected to its 8,607 route mile fiber network.

Through this network expansion, which was launched in November 2014 and includes Lumos' Richmond, Va. markets, the provider will increase its enterprise addressable market by $135 million. This represents what Lumos says is an increase of 60 percent versus its core markets.

This isn't a speculative fiber build. Already, Lumos has signed a customer contract for the EdgeConneX facility and has begun to market its capabilities for fiber connectivity to its growing roster of 1,200 enterprise customers. The EdgeConneX facility, located at 3800 Village Avenue, Suite C, Norfolk, is a tier 3, high availability data center with 100,100 square feet total and has expansion capability to 10 megawatts.

New and existing Lumos customers will be able to purchase Ethernet and Wavelength services out of the EdgeConneX facility. Lumos will offer select Ethernet speeds from 3 Mbps to 10 Gbps, while its wavelength services support a mix of 1 Gbps, 2.5 Gbps, 10 Gbps, and 100 Gbps speeds.

This data center connection leverages Lumos Networks' 822-mile fiber route expansion in Virginia, including 270 route miles of dense fiber (average metro core strand count of 144) in the Hampton Roads/Norfolk markets. Hampton Roads is a significant growth market for Lumos because it's the 37th largest Metropolitan Service Area (MSA) in the U.S., encompassing the cities of Hampton, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Newport News and Virginia Beach.

The expansion into EdgeConneX Edge Data Center is part of a broader initiative by the company to achieve two goals: enhance its reach into key colocation centers to bring in revenues from enterprise customers, and create a foundation to potentially spin itself out as a fiber-centric provider in 2017.

Enterprise continued to be a large revenue driver in 2015. Lumos reported that it renewed enterprise accounts totaling $726,000 in monthly recurring charges, up over 17 percent from the prior year.

As part of its evaluation of separating the fiber and traditional rural ILEC business, Lumos is looking at various options to expand the fiber business organically and through acquisitions of similar fiber-centric providers in or near its territory.

For more:
- see the release

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