Aureon has launched a 100 Tbps long-haul transport route engineered to support the rapid growth of large-scale AI and cloud deployments. 

Built with partners t3 Broadband, Nokia, and Midco, the route links Ellendale, North Dakota, to Chicago via a diverse, low-latency fiber corridor across the Midwest, bolstering the region’s role as a critical on-ramp to major data center hubs.

Set to reach 100 Tbps by July, the new route is expected to scale to 400 Tbps to support future AI-driven growth, with Aureon managing ongoing support and maintenance.

Providing a connection to Chicago will be a key attraction for this route. As an established connectivity network hub, Chicago boasts an array of fiber connectivity and interconnection onramps and offramps for existing and new data center facilities. 

Priscilla Favors, VP Wholesale Sales at Aureon, said its status as a regional player and its wholesale partnerships reflect that “hyperscalers are looking for very unique, diverse routes.”

“There were a lot of players looking for this solution as we were getting bids from other carriers as well for the same route,” she said. “And it was a very internal good exercise team effort from us just to look to see how a small company like us could be very swift and move quickly to meet the demands of an opportunity like this. And it took us about 30 days.”

Chris Burns, COO of Aureon, agreed that, as a regional player, Aureon can respond quickly to emerging capacity requests from hyperscalers and data center providers.

“We bring a lot of agility to the table, based on who we are,” he said. “We've always worked with partners throughout our history, right?” he said. “So, we're able to move pretty quickly in this space.”

Multi-carrier coordination

The partnership of Aureon, i3, and Midco illustrates that each provider brings their own unique expertise and network assets to the table.

However, setting up this new network deployment was not easy. The deployment required coordination across three different networks, vendors, and timelines.

Aureon, created as a partnership among multiple rural service providers in the Midwest to provide long-haul connectivity, traces its roots to Iowa Switch Company. Through its own capital and various acquisitions, Aureon has over 60,000 miles of owned and partner fiber, direct data center access in key Iowa and regional markets.

Similarly, Midco and t3 have also built sizeable networks coupled with experience serving data centers.  

Given the hyperscaler community’s need for bandwidth, Aureon and its partners, Midco and t3, had to respond quickly with a solution.  

While Aureon had a place to interconnect with Midco, which was key to the proposal for the new route, Favors noted the main challenge was extending network facilities into Chicago.

“There were some challenges with getting to Chicago, so we were all trying to figure that out, looking at different options,” she said. “A lot of the data centers and hyperscalers, once they move, they need it yesterday, right? So, there were time constraints in trying to make that happen very quickly.”

Favors added that “we knew what we had already, what we were capable of, and then using those partnerships to put it all kind of together.”

Midco’s Vice President of Business Sales, Justin Hebda, agreed and added that “working with Aureon to deploy a solution leveraging Midco’s fiber network, combined with the depth and reach of our network, allowed us to deliver high-capacity transport quickly and reliably.”

Along with its suite of fixed wireless, 5G wireless services and microwave transport, t3 provides optical transport solutions covering the edge, aggregation/middle mile networks, and long-haul transport networks.

Chris Crowe, CEO of t3 Broadband, which brought its engineering expertise and network assets to the table, noted that “coordinating across multiple carriers and aligning network architecture at this scale requires a high degree of technical precision.”

In addition to coordinating across three service providers, the trio also aligned on using Nokia’s coherent optical technology.

“Fortunately, both operators, Midco and Aureon, landed on Nokia as a vendor partner, right?” Burns said. “When you think about the criticality the customers have and the speed of delivery, I think that was a tremendous benefit being on the same optics, the same transport platform allowed us to kind of coordinate supply chain issues, make sure we were aligned across the partnership and with the vendor.”

He added that “there were a lot of synergies that were important when you think about the short time to deliver the service.”

Eying Managed Optical Fiber Networks (MOFN)

Beyond providing fiber-based capacity, Aureon is eyeing the potential of Managed Optical Fiber Networks (MOFN).

Championed by optical vendors, including Adtran, Ciena, Nokia, and Ribbon, MOFNs Networks are dedicated, high-capacity optical networks built and operated for a single organization by a third-party service provider.

This model gives hyperscalers and large enterprises another option besides leasing "dark fiber" with the ability to purchase traditional shared network services, allowing businesses to offload hardware and maintenance complexities.

While the MOFN concept had an initial trade-off, it is that hyperscalers could not get network resource visibility around service health, alarms, performance metrics, or potential SLA issues. Nokia has developed what it calls a “smart” MOFN model, in which CSPs maintain operational control. At the same time, hyperscalers gain the transparency they need to treat the network as an extension of their cloud infrastructure.

Aureon, which has several decades of experience in monitoring service performance across partners, sees the potential in MOFN.

“You hear about these MOFN models and hyperscalers wanting a partner to work with to look beyond just the fiber capacity,” Burns said. “That's something we're looking at as well.”

Remote challenges

While Iowa may be emerging as a new data center attraction, the challenge for providers looking outside the large hubs is not just procuring land, but power.

Many times, these data centers are in very remote markets where power options are likely minimal.

“We've had some opportunities that we've been working with, and then we've had to shift locations because they're like, we couldn't get the power we needed, that location's out, we're searching for a new one, right?” Favors said.

Burns agreed and added that as data center providers look to locate facilities in rural markets, energy companies are offering new powering options.

“There's a lot of renewable energy options, wind generation, and there's talk about firing up the energy center up in Cedar Rapids in 2029,” he said.

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