UPN lays challenge to FiberLight, Zayo with Dallas-Fort Worth dark fiber expansion

Unite Private Networks (UPN) is making a bigger splash in the Texas’ Dallas Fort Worth market by expanding its fiber network into Frisco, Texas, a move that could help it challenge FiberLight and Zayo.

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The new fiber infrastructure extends throughout Frisco, including Network and Internet Blvd, Frisco Roughriders Stadium, and the Baylor Family Medical area.

Business customers will be able to access to dark fiber or lit services that can scale from 100 Mbps to 100 Gbps, as well as a suite of other products such as Ethernet and wavelength services.

What’s significant about Frisco is that it was recently named the fastest growing city in the U.S., and according to a WalletHub study, has the highest rate of job growth in the country at 5.32 percent.

This latest buildout will complement UPN’s fiber network presence. Already, UPN has built out nearly 800 miles across the Dallas/Fort Worth metro.

While this is UPN’s latest expansion, it won’t be its last in Texas. The service provider is now in a position to gain additional capital as the cable MSO purchased a large stake in the company earlier this year.

UPN’s move comes at a time when competitors like FiberLight and Zayo are making ongoing inroads throughout the state.

FiberLight announced in July that it had established additional low-latency connectivity between the western portions of the company's Texas network to tie its 10,000 mile network together.

Meanwhile, Zayo won a new dark fiber and IP services contract with the Texas Education Service Center Region 11, furthering its strategy to leverage and extend existing fiber to the tower (FTTT) builds to serve additional service opportunities.