Windstream has opened five new fiber routes located on its 100G nationwide network, enabling it to provide carrier and enterprise customers connectivity between major interconnection points in Tier 1 cities, as well as Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets across the United States.
These new routes, which were made possible with Windstream’s recent acquisition of EarthLink, offer customers access to the service provider’s portfolio of optical Waves, MEF 2.0 Certified Carrier Ethernet, MPLS and Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) solutions.
The new routes were designed to connect several markets in the Deep South as well as along the Gulf Coast and the East Coast:
Dallas to Atlanta: Offers a low-latency, direct route bridging the two markets with add/drop capability in Birmingham, Alabama; Jackson, Mississippi; and Shreveport, Louisiana.
Miami to Atlanta: Built along the Gulf Coast via Tampa, Florida, this route complements the existing route along the Atlantic Coast via Jacksonville, Florida. Customers with traffic terminating in the U.S. via the Miami NAP international landing station will get access to diverse routing options over Windstream’s network.
Raleigh to Savannah: Sometimes referred to as the “Beach Route,” this route offers another unique, direct path extending along the Eastern seaboard.
Houston to Gulfport: Known as the “Gulf Coast Route,” this route offers add/drop capability through the Louisiana cities of Lake Charles, Lafayette, Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
Memphis to Charlotte: This path utilizes optical fiber composite overhead ground wire, offering customers unique routing.
Buddy Bayer, senior vice president of transport engineering for Windstream, said in a release, “these routes offer Windstream Wholesale customers even greater network efficiency and performance, along with access to our entire scalable, secure fiber solutions suite.”
Bayer added that “our unique Miami to Atlanta route offers our international customers diverse, low-latency 100G connectivity to Tier 1, 2 and 3 markets across the country” to unlock “the key to market expansion for many international carriers, especially those in Latin America.”
Besides the new routes, Windstream’s acquisition of EarthLink brings several other benefits to Windstream wholesale and enterprise customers, including access to more than 445 new point of presence (POP) locations, and the addition of a larger pool of new data centers and carrier hotels to the Windstream network.
Coupled with its coast-to-coast network expansion efforts, including an expansion in the Western United States, the completion of these new routes will make Windstream a more attractive option for a host of international carriers, content and cloud providers, cable and other network operators, and ISPs.
Along with the West Coast, the service provider previously announced similar extensions of its long-haul core network into Miami and from Denver to Chicago and Dallas.