February 7, 2006 Herndon, VA -- CFN Services, a provider of telecom infrastructure services formerly known as CSX Fiber Networks, announced that it has expanded the base of data, applications, and services supported by its FiberSource planning service. CFN says the service, launched in 2005 to support the company's wireline and wireless carrier customers' internal planning capabilities, combines advice from expert planning professionals with access to the company's comprehensive infrastructure knowledge-base.
"The initial reception to FiberSource from our traditional customer base has been outstanding," maintains Russell Logan, VP of professional services for CFN. "As we've ramped up and expanded visibility around the capabilities of the platform, we are continually amazed at the ever growing list of potential applications we're seeing from leading carriers and equipment vendors, large engineering firms and systems integrators, government agencies, and even private equity and investment firms. We're now leveraging FiberSource to support applications as varied as core network planning, sales, product planning, merger synergy capture, access and backhaul network optimization, and custom enterprise network sourcing among many others."
In addition to the expanded list of applications, CFN also announced continued growth of the infrastructure knowledge base beyond dark fiber and facilities, as well as expansion of its related planning and implementation services. The company says its nationwide geospatial asset base has grown to include more than 220,000 fiber network route miles, 15,000 unique fiber-served buildings, 550 metropolitan fiber networks, 150,000 cellular sites and towers, licensable broadband wireless spectrum, rail corridor rights of way, carrier collocation space, excess optical transport capacity, and more. The company says its planners use state-of-the-art geographic information systems and network planning tools to get the most out of the vast amounts of information available, while also delivering information directly to customers in real-time via an integrated Web portal.
Outside of the data, the company says is planning and information services have expanded beyond its initial subscription service to include project-based services as well. The company has also announced the availability of its FiberSource site review and market survey, both providing access to FiberSource for specific projects, and including cost estimates and dedicated planning support. The company says it is also offering an expanded range of implementation services, from fiber sourcing and delivery program management to turnkey network implementation and financing.
"Previously network operators had little choice but to expend new capital investment to satisfy network expansion needs," concludes Rob Russin, VP of network planning at CFN Services. "The lack of a single comprehensive source for actually knowing what assets were potentially available in a given market simply did not exist in a usable format. FiberSource fills that information void by providing insights into a diverse set of telecom assets across 240 markets nationwide. With FiberSource network operators can rapidly iterate network planning and business case scenarios to optimize project costs and investment capital, where available assets can be tapped for use in planned internal or potential customer network projects."