FiberLight wraps fiber-based ring for LINX's Northern Va. Internet Exchange site

FiberLight has put the final touches on a redundant dark fiber optical network for the London Internet Exchange (LINX) in Northern Virginia as the U.K.-based provider looks to establish a larger foothold in the U.S. market.

Leveraging the underground network it has built out in the Northern Virginia metro, FiberLight's fiber ring will connect three switching points, including Ashburn, Reston and Manassas, which make up the LINX Northern Virginia (NoVA) Internet Exchange Point (IXP).

The U.K. provider's move makes sense since Northern Virginia is one of the largest Internet hubs.

LINX said it launched the jointly-owned NoVA multi-site IXP last week as a way to provide the U.S. access to content networks with a solution to exchange local and global Internet traffic.

As the largest Internet exchange point in the U.K., LINX provides peering services to over 490 members across 60 countries.

Providing dark fiber to data center providers like LINX continues to be a growing opportunity for FiberLight.

"This is data center to data center connectivity, and it is dark fiber, which is a product we are still enamored with," said John Schmitt, senior vice president of Carrier Sales and Business Development for FiberLight, in an interview with FierceTelecom. "Northern Virginia was one of the early Internet hubs and more and more it is becoming not just a domestic Internet hub, but with connections like the LINX project is more important on the international scale."  

While FiberLight has won other dark fiber network contracts to serve international carriers that need connectivity from South Florida into Latin America, this is the first time where it is serving one that has needs in the Northeast region.   

"A lot of where we have touched with the international market has been through Europe and Latin America with our South Florida footprint," Schmitt said. "We have played with those carriers, but we have played less with the carriers that connect through the Northeast, but we see more and more of that coming our way."

LINX is just one of a number of new international Internet Exchange providers that will require dark fiber solutions from service providers such as FiberLight.

Other potential targets could include Germany's DE-CIX, which opened its New York City Internet Exchange in September.

For more:
- see the release

Special report: The Contenders: Dark fiber providers add a new layer of flavor on the network cake

Related articles:
FiberLight gets $97.2M cash infusion to fund network expansion
FiberLight snags 20-year dark fiber agreement with Univ. of Virginia
FiberLight lights up Dallas-Ft. Worth 100G network link