Windstream expands Richmond, Va. area fiber network, enhances on-net building, metro footprint

Windstream has expanded its metro fiber network in the Richmond, Virginia area, furthering its strategy to extend services directly into more local data centers and commercial business buildings.

Specifically, the service provider will enhance its network in five surrounding cities, including Short Pump, Glen Allen, West Creek Parkway, Midlothian and Mechanicsville.

In tandem with bringing fiber into more locations, the telco will provide its complementary broadband wireless service. Business customers will be able to use the fixed wireless service as either a backup or primary connection for their unified communications and Ethernet services.

All of these services come with local technical and customer support.

The expansion in Richmond follows an earlier effort Windstream made in the Charlotte, North Carolina area in February.

Similar to the Richmond build, the expansion in Charlotte will give Windstream's business customers direct connectivity to major markets across the country while enabling them to utilize its portfolio of data, voice, network and cloud services.

Overall, these fiber builds enable Windstream to lower its dependency on renting facilities from AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ). By adding more on-net buildings to its fiber network the provider said it will be able to remove $1 billion in additional costs it pays on wholesale access to deliver services to its multisite business customers. 

Windstream said it has additional fiber expansions planned in markets such as Charlotte, Atlanta, Chicago and Nashville throughout the remainder of the year. However, the telco did not provide a specific timeline as to when these builds would be completed.

Tony Thomas, CEO of Windstream told investors during the company's first quarter 2016 earnings call that on-net fiber network connections are "still a very relatively small portion of our business and it represents significant opportunity for us."

For more:
- see the release

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