Midco targets businesses and hyperscalers with new 400G wavelength service

Midco is giving its long-haul fiber network another role by serving up 400G wavelength services for its business and service provider customers. 

Although new to the 400G game, Midco is seeing “rapidly increased demand” from its business customer base that requires this speed level.

Justin Hebda, Midco’s VP of Business Sales, said it had closed contracts “for 10 of these solutions with businesses who need to connect their core network to widely distributed locations.”

Midco’s move into 400G is timed well.

Vertical Systems Group noted in its 2024 U.S. Wavelength Services LEADERBOARD that “customer demand for 400 Gbps Wave services is solidly increasing, driven by hyperscalers, data center connectivity, cloud providers and enterprises with heavy data transfer requirements.”

Focus on network expansion

Midco’s 400G wavelength offering follows significant investments in the network’s speed and capacity.

The service provider has positioned itself to take Midco’s network already covers the heart of this region, from North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Kansas and beyond.

Since 2021, the company has been upgrading and expanding its fiber network across the Midwest. The service provider said the expansion is not just about increasing coverage but about enhancing the quality and reliability of the network for future demands. 

It appears that Midco’s efforts are paying off.

Last year, Midco demonstrated less than 20 milliseconds of latency from Spearfish, SD, to Chicago, IL, on Midco’s MEF 3.0 certified network during testing. 

What enables Midco to maintain latency levels and provide QoS for business and wholesale customers is that it is delivering services over its own fiber network.

Pao Lo, vice president of network engineering at Midco, said in a blog post that Midco’s advantage in serving businesses is that “we have our own fiber connections to major hubs like Chicago and Denver.”

Meeting hyperscaler demands

Business customers aren’t the only entities that will be able to take advantage of Midco’s 400G wavelength service.

Midco is also keen on targeting hyperscaler data center opportunities in the Midwest territories where it has network operations.

As hyperscalers look to expand into the Midwest with the growing advent of AI, they will require a mix of high-speed lit fiber services like wavelengths or dark fiber.

Through its ongoing fiber investments, Midco has positioned itself to be a key supplier of lit and dark fiber solutions for hyperscalers that are expanding into the Midwest.

Jeff Sanders, director of wholesale for Midco, said the location of its network in the Midwest to major markets has become an attraction to hyperscalers. “Our long-haul network connects customers to major points of presence sites such as Minneapolis, Omaha, Chicago, and Denver, allowing the transmission of massive volumes of voice, video and data at reliable 400G speeds.” 

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