Lightpath enhances fiber reach with United Fiber and Data (UFD) purchase
Lightpath has reached a deal to acquire United Fiber and Data, a growing base of fiber network infrastructure.
By purchasing UFD, the service provider adds a geographically diverse, high fiber count between New York City and Ashburn, VA, while increasing its serviceable market in Manhattan by over 20%.
After meeting regulatory approvals, Lightpath expects the acquisition to close in the third quarter of 2024.
Fiber-rich assets
A big part of the acquisition is the fiber assets that UFD brings.
UFD owns and operates a unique and diverse 323-route mile, high-fiber count network between New York City and Ashburn, VA, connecting the country's largest population center with the world's largest data center and cloud ecosystem.
The provider also owns a 79-route mile metro network in New York City and New Jersey, including connectivity to over 350 enterprise and data center locations and a high-fiber count crossing of the Hudson River, adding capacity to Lightpath's three existing Hudson River crossings.
Specifically, UFD's New York City-Ashburn network offers high fiber counts and will support dark fiber, Ethernet, and wavelengths up to 800 Gbps. This network is geographically diverse from typical long-haul routes along the I-95 corridor.
It will enhance Lightpath's network of over 20,000 route miles, connecting over 15,000 service locations, including over 140 data centers and seven cable landing stations.
Lightpath said the combination of networks will allow it to offer geographically diverse, high-capacity services from commercial enterprise buildings, cable landing stations, and data centers along the East Coast directly to the Ashburn ecosystem.
“The addition of United Fiber & Data is a natural extension of Lightpath’s expansive Greater New York City Metropolitan fiber assets, increasing our ability to serve high-capacity customer needs into the Ashburn data center ecosystem and further enhancing our Manhattan metro coverage where we will serve nearly 1,500 enterprise and data center destinations, a 5x increase over the past three years,” said Chris Morley, CEO of Lightpath.
Customer gains
The other winners in this deal are UFD and Lighthpath's existing customers.
UFD customers will gain access to the entire Lightpath network and service portfolio, including Wavelengths, Ethernet, Internet, Private Networks, Dark Fiber, LP FlexNet, Voice, Security Solutions, and other Managed Services.
Additionally, customers can utilize Lightpath services to connect to over 140 data centers, seven and all major cloud providers.
Likewise, Lightpath's customers can access UFD's dark fiber and lit services, including wavelengths--a growing service that's resonating with enterprises and carriers. UFD also brings over 375 on-net buildings equipped with fiber.
In recent years, UFD has been attracting a sizeable list of high-profile customers for its fiber-based services, including traditional carriers like Deutsche Telekom Global Carrier and Eastlink.
It also gained several large business customers while gaining including NJFX, a cable landing station (CLS) colocation campus that offers Tier 3, carrier-neutral data center capabilities, as customers.
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Sean Buckley
Sean is responsible for establishing and executing the editorial strategies of Lightwave and Broadband Technology Report across their websites, email newsletters, events, and other information products.