Zayo updates network rollouts including 400G milestones

Zayo outlined its latest series of infrastructure upgrades in Q3, including 400G routes and enhancements to its global IP infrastructure.

“Next-generation technology is being deployed at never-before-seen rates. This has placed the communications infrastructure industry at a unique inflection point as all digital businesses—enterprises, carriers and hyperscalers alike—scramble to ensure they have enough capacity to support these technologies,” said Bill Long, Chief Product Officer at Zayo. “As this trend plays out, it will be a strong tailwind for those providers who can capitalize on the moment. As one of the newest and most modern networks on the market, Zayo is uniquely positioned to support this growing demand for global bandwidth.”

In Q3, Zayo added nine new 400G-enabled routes to its North American network to provide high-bandwidth options between key cities, including:

• Atlanta to DC
• Denver to Dallas (Direct)
• Montreal to Quebec City
• Clinton to Ponchatoula
• Indianapolis to Columbus
• Ashburn to Baltimore
• Bend to Umatilla
• Laurel to Denver

Additional 400G routes in progress include:

• Houston to New Orleans
• St. Louis to Chicago
• Buffalo to Albany
• Winnipeg to Toronto
• Toronto to Montreal
• Buffalo to Toronto
• Columbus to Ashburn
• Cleveland to Buffalo
• Houston to Ponchatoula
• Umatilla to Quincy

Zayo added eight new IP PoPs to its North American network in Q3, including:

• 45 Parliament St, Toronto, ON
• 250 Williams St NW, Atlanta, GA
• 6477 W Wells Park Rd, Salt Lake City, UT
• 2335 S Ellis St, Chandler, AZ
• 375 Pearl St, New York, NY
• 626 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA
• 431 Horner Ave, Etobicoke, ON
• 1100 White St SW, Atlanta, GA

Zayo said its IP backbone, which runs on the company's wholly owned fiber infrastructure, makes up nearly 10% of the world's Internet capacity. Zayo currently manages 96Tb of core capacity and 34TB of peering capacity, and adds 1-2Tb of peering capacity every quarter.

In Q3 2023, Zayo completed the overbuild of its Omaha to Denver route, providing increased capacity on this highly sought-after route.

Zayo also has three new long-haul route builds and two additional route overbuilds in progress with scheduled completion by the end of 2023.

LATAM

In October 2022, Zayo announced its global low-latency route connecting the U.S. to South America’s financial hub of Sao Paulo. In Q3 2023, the company completed expansions to its connectivity infrastructure in Sao Paulo including a new key terrestrial route that will provide connectivity throughout the metro ring and to four key data centers.

New Sao Paulo Points of Presence (PoPs):

• Alameda Araguaia, 3641, Alphaville, Barueri, SP, 06455 000, Brazil
• Av. Marcos Penteado de Ulhoa Rodrigues, 249, Santana de Parnaiba, SP, 06543 001, Brazil
• Avenida Ceci, 1900, Tambore, Barueri, SP, 06460 120, Brazil

Rua Ricardo Prudente de Aquino, 85 Santan de Parnaiba, Brazil

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FCC Chairwoman proposes to restore oversight of broadband services

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel is calling for a restoration of FCC oversight of broadband services, similar to its authority over voice communication. 

Specifically, in the interest of national security and public safety, Rosenworcel is proposing to reclassifying Internet Access as a Title II service, thereby require broaband providers to report and address internet outages.

Highlights: 

Secure Broadband Networks – Ensure the FCC can deny companies controlled by hostile foreign governments access to our broadband networks. 

Internet Outage Oversight – Bolster the FCC’s authority to require internet service providers to report and fix internet outages like it does for legacy voice providers. 

Resilient Broadband Networks – Support the agency’s ongoing work to enhance the resiliency of broadband networks, helping them withstand and recover from natural disasters and mitigate other network vulnerabilities. 

Public Outage Information – Allow the FCC to ensure consumers, local public safety officials, and other partners have access to public safety resources and information. 

Supporting Public Safety Officials – Enable the Commission to support and oversee the adequate provision of broadband services to first responders for public safety purposes and prevent throttling of their emergency communications.

Enhance Emergency Alerts – Ensure the agency can require broadband service providers to transmit emergency alerts to their subscribers, improving the effectiveness of these life-saving notices. 

https://www.fcc.gov/document/national-security-public-safety-restoring-broadband-oversight

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Nokia opens 6G Lab in Bangalore

Nokia inaugurated a 6G Lab at its Global R&D center in Bangalore, India. 

Nokia said its 6G lab supports the Government of India’s ‘Bharat 6G Vision,’ introduced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, that envisions a key global role for India in the standardization, development, and implementation of 6G technology. The Lab will function as a platform for collaboration for industry stakeholders and facilitate the testing of innovative solutions while establishing their potential for commercialization.

The Lab includes a setup to research ‘Network as a Sensor’ technology that enables the network to sense objects, people and movement without the need for on-board sensors. In the 6G era, ’Network as a Sensor’ has been identified as a key enabling technology that supports the vision of bringing the digital and physical worlds together. Sensing will be fully integrated into the wireless network and operate simultaneously with communication services. This has the potential to enable people to see around corners, gather information about their surroundings and even interact with objects at a distance. The Lab will also provide an experimental platform for researching algorithms, privacy, and sustainable system design.

Nokia is a pioneer in 6G work and is engaged in several global projects and regional initiatives with industry peers, customers, academia, and research institutions. This work aims to form a common view and direction for 6G, including 6G Hexa-X and Hexa-X-II, the first and second phase of the European 6G Flagship. Nokia is also a founding member of the Next G Alliance which is helping to drive the 6G ecosystem in North America and coordinating the German Lighthouse project 6G ANNA.

The Hon’ble Minister of Railways, Communications, Electronics & IT, Government of India, Mr Ashwini Vaishnaw, said: “The inauguration of the Nokia 6G research lab in Bengaluru today is another step towards PM Narendra Modi’s vision of making India an innovation hub. Interesting use cases coming out of this lab will be related to transportation safety, health care and education which will be another big contribution in the entire Digital India suite.”

Nishant Batra, Chief Strategy and Technology Officer of Nokia, said: “Nokia is honored to contribute towards the realization of the Indian government’s ‘Bharat 6G vision’. We look forward to collaborating with key stakeholders to help India become a major player in 6G technology development and adoption; and take its place in the global arena as a leading developer and supplier of advanced telecom technologies and solutions.”

https://www.nokia.com/

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Vantage Data Centers raises US$1.35 billion

Vantage Data Centers has raised USD$1.35 billion in securitized notes to be used to refinance existing financings in place for three data centers on the company’s flagship Northern Virginia campus and five data centers in the province of Quebec, Canada, as well as to fund general corporate needs.

Deutsche Bank Securities acted as Sole Structuring Advisor. In addition to Deutsche Bank, Societe Generale, Truist Securities and Wells Fargo Securities acted as Joint Active Bookrunning Managers on the transaction.

“This transaction is Vantage’s ninth securitization financing since 2018. It’s also our fourth green financing bringing our total green loan financings to more than $2 billion,” said Sharif Metwalli, Vantage’s chief financial officer. “This financing provides an even stronger financial position for our North American platform and enables us to continue scaling the business to meet customer demand in an environmentally friendly way. We appreciate the ongoing support and partnership from our lead investor, DigitalBridge, and their confidence in us to grow the business to not only meet our customers’ IT requirements but also to align with our customers’ sustainability goals.”

“Vantage is delivering on its growth strategy, and despite inflation and the challenging capital markets, investors continue to be confident in Vantage’s ability to execute as evidenced by this securitization,” said Jon Mauck, senior managing director at DigitalBridge. “We look forward to further building on this momentum to drive value for our stakeholders, not only in North America, but around the world. Vantage is uniquely positioned for long-term growth with a leading digital infrastructure platform designed for the world’s preeminent hyperscalers and cloud providers.”

• Vantage recently announced that AustralianSuper, Australia’s largest pension fund, will invest €1.5 billion to acquire a significant minority stake in Vantage’s EMEA business, joining DigitalBridge as a key shareholder. 

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POET expands production with Xiamen JV

 POET Technologies’ joint venture, Super Photonics Xiamen (SPX), is expanding production capacity to support anticipated customer demand for 2024 and beyond.

SPX expects to ramp production of POET’s Optical InterposerTM -based optical engines for 100G CWDM4, POET ONE (a 100G single chip TxRx engine), 100G LR4, 200G FR4, 400G FR4 and 800G 2xFR4 solutions. Compared to modules built with conventional chip-on-board and silicon photonics-based components, POET’s optical engines are highly differentiated, hybrid-integrated products. POET’s wafer-scale assembly process and passive alignment techniques result in chip scale optical engines that offer superior performance and lower assembly cost for makers of pluggable transceivers.

“SPX has received purchase orders from customers, and we are excited about the strong demand for the POET engines in 2024 and beyond. Our team has placed orders for additional precision die bonders, testers and additional equipment that will expand production capacity to fulfill the customer orders on hand and expected in the near future,” said Xiaozhong Zheng, CEO of SPX. “Our team is working to improve production efficiencies that will expand capacity well beyond what the equipment itself will provide.”

“Some of our transmit and receive optical engines are already in low-volume production and we expect to add a few more products to the production list by end of the year. Our 100G CWDM and LR4 transmit and receive engines and the 400G/800G receive engines are quite popular with module customers because of the simplicity of the solution and the elimination of active alignments that are required by conventional assembly methods,” said Raju Kankipati, SVP & GM of POET North America. “We expect to capitalize on the steady market demand in China for our legacy products as POET further develops our high-speed products for next-generation networks and AI applications.”

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