28 August 2003 Rochester, NY Lightwave -- Privately held American Fiber Systems Inc. has closed an additional $6 million equity round, led by North Atlantic Capital of Portland, ME. Previous investor partners Sierra Ventures and Lucent Venture Partners also participated. Mark J. Morrissette, managing director of North Atlantic Capital will join the AFS Board of Directors.
"As a result of AFS' ability to execute its business plan in the wake of the most challenging years that the telecom sector has ever known, we were able to attract interest for further expansion of our networks on an optical last mile basis into select buildings," reports Dave Rusin, chief executive officer of American Fiber Systems.
The company will use the funds to expand the portfolio of products and services it makes available to its customers, including metropolitan wide transport services. It's emphasis going forward is threefold: (1) continue to enhance recurring revenue streams through new customer additions; (2) maintain its discipline of IRR thresholds on carrier or large Enterprise deals; and (3) return not just a profit to its investors but an economic value-added profit.
"Our continued focus will be on providing redundant, diverse optical connectivity to ensure common carriers, ISPs, and large Enterprise customers that their voice, data, images or video are truly transcending a local optical network that is owned by the operator," adds Rusin. "We have successfully enabled many broadband applications in support of Enterprise-wide business continuity, real-time data storage, and disaster recovery. The value of redundant, diverse end-to-end all-optical facilities and services connectivity is a competitive, security, and cost benefit for the chief information officer."
AFS offers three Ethernet-based services. Virtual Private Line Service (EVPL) provides point-to-point connectivity between diverse locations. Virtual Private LAN Service (EVLAN) provides point to multipoint, or any point to any point connectivity across multiple, diverse locations. And Ethernet Internet Access (EIA) provides connections to the Internet backbone. All three services are being offered with bandwidth rates starting at 10 Mbits/sec up to Gigabit Ethernet, with the customer able to choose its specific, custom bandwidth rate.