Windstream Wholesale plans Pacific Northwest fiber network route using Infinera’s FlexILS line system

Jan. 21, 2020
Windstream adds that it has increased capacity on several major routes to 48 Tbps.

Windstream Wholesale and Infinera (NASDAQ: INFN) have jointly revealed that the former plans to build a fiber-optic network route of more than 1000 miles from Salt Lake City to Portland and Seattle using Infinera’s FlexILS line system. Windstream adds that it has increased capacity on several major routes to 48 Tbps.

“Our new route to the Pacific Northwest, along with the overlay of existing routes with Infinera’s FlexILS technology, is a response to increasing customer demand for bandwidth,” said Joe Scattareggia, executive vice president of Windstream Wholesale. “These ongoing initiatives pave the way for Windstream Wholesale to meet customers’ needs for high-quality, low-latency services across our most popular routes for years to come.”

Infinera’s FlexILS is a flexible grid-compliant open optical line system that supports colorless-directionless-contentionless (CDC) ROADM capabilities and C+L-band operation. The two companies revealed last October that Windstream was adding the L-Band feature to its fiber network (see “Windstream adds L-Band option to fiber network via Infinera C+L Solution”). Windstream subsequently announced it had overbuilt an express fiber route between Dallas and Atlanta using the FlexILS (see “Windstream Wholesale overbuilds express fiber route between Dallas and Atlanta”). The service provider plans similar upgrades elsewhere in its fiber-optic network.

Windstream Wholesale offers wavelengths, Ethernet services, dedicated internet access, SD-WAN wholesale, proprietary OfficeSuite White Label, and cloud SIP and PRI services to wholesale and resale customers.

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