Cbeyond extends reach via FiberLight, Zayo

Network and cloud services provider Cbeyond (NASDAQ: CBEY) has announced partnerships with a pair of fiber services vendors to extend its coverage footprint. The partnerships with FiberLight and Zayo aim to help Cbeyond reach its goals of lighting 1,000 buildings by the end of 2013 and transitioning an additional 28 percent of its access customers to Metro Ethernet in the same time frame.

Currently, Cbeyond provides 22 percent of its customers with Metro Ethernet via Ethernet-over-Copper technology. To date, Cbeyond has placed orders for fiber to reach more than 600 buildings within the company's densest markets.

"Our primary goal for 2012 is to deliver a secure cloud infrastructure, network, and consultative sales approach to bring the real benefits of secure cloud computing to the most technically demanding small and medium-sized businesses nationwide," said Brent Cobb, chief customer officer for Cbeyond.

"Our association with a high-quality growth company like Cbeyond, recently named one of Forbes' most trustworthy companies of 2012, further illustrates the value of FiberLight's flexible service offering," said Ben Edmond, president of sales and marketing of FiberLight. "Our ability to meet the needs of Cbeyond for dark fiber provides not only a potential cost savings opportunity associated with owner economics, but also supports its strategy for delivering Cbeyond 2.0 services, enabling more bandwidth and the key applications consuming that bandwidth, within the small to medium sized business market."

"We are excited to partner with Cbeyond to bring dark fiber connectively to small and medium-sized businesses across the U.S.," said Matt Erickson, president of Zayo Fiber Solutions. "We anticipate this partnership will be beneficial for both organizations as we have the joint goal of bringing fiber to buildings across the U.S."

Cbeyond did not say where each fiber services vendor would provide them with infrastructure. However, FiberLight offers metro network services in 29 metro areas within Georgia, Florida, Washington, DC, Texas, Virginia, and Maryland. Zayo's network assets include approximately 45,000 route miles covering 42 states plus Washington, DC. Zayo says it has approximately 5,200 buildings on-net.