Wilcon, with Key Information Systems (KeyInfo), has built a new fiber ring that will bring dedicated lit and dark fiber services to businesses located in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.
While the pair did not reveal any customers using the system yet, they expect to attract businesses in various verticals including healthcare, financial, retail and government agencies.
Providing a private, high-speed link for KeyInfo customers, the new fiber ring extends from Agoura Hills to Simi Valley to downtown Los Angeles to El Segundo, and back to Agoura Hills.
Lief Morin, president for KeyInfo, told FierceTelecom they established the relationship with Wilcon in order to achieve two goals: enhance their data center presence and sell fiber-based services to their clients.
The fiber services will complement their growing base of on-premise, off-premise, and hybrid cloud offerings.
"When we got here, the communications infrastructure was limited and a bit long in the tooth so we did a project to reevaluate all of those capabilities," Morin said. "We got into a relationship with Wilcon in order to not only consume some of their dark fiber so we can provide pretty dramatically enhanced capabilities for our data center presence, but also to resell fiber into our clients that are on that dark fiber route network in California."
Similar to other growing cloud providers, Morin said that while security is a concern, the bigger emerging issue is centered on reducing network latency.
"Some clients don't care and say give me some connectivity and put it on a VPN connection and their happy, while others care a great deal," Morin said. "Usually the conversation is not as aggressive about security as it is about latency carrier convergence is not as scary as it is latency."
Morin added that they are in the process of implementing technology that will allow them to provide dedicated secure Layer-2 and Layer-3 connections for clients that want a dedicated service.
"We're in the final days of bringing online a set of technologies to extend our network in the Layer-2 and Layer-3 out into their environment so we can exist in their network and in their security bubble in a private manner so it's completely dedicated to their world," Morin said. "That's a different approach to the whole matter when we can be on their sub net and that's something that people have asked about and are interested what that might look like."
In addition, the ring has a connection into KeyInfo's Tier 3 data center in Agoura Hills, Calif., as well as Wilcon's extended, 3,000-mile fiber network, which runs throughout Southern California from north of Los Angeles to San Diego.
Because the network is fiber-based, the two companies can provide unlimited capacity to potential customers while supporting a flat cost structure regardless of the network traffic businesses decide to transmit from their locations.
Although Wilcon is a regional provider, it has been making waves in the burgeoning dark fiber market. In September, the service provider expanded the Southern California fiber network reach with a new ring connecting downtown Los Angeles and El Segundo, for example. It has also been able to attract key customers like Los Angeles Center Studios.
For more:
- see the release
Special report: Dark fiber creates new fortunes for ILECs, cable and CLECs
Related articles:
Wilcon deepens California fiber footprint with Los Angeles, El Segundo ring
AT&T, CenturyLink and competitors are divided on dark fiber potential
Wilcon wraps up dark fiber build for Los Angeles Center Studios
This article was updated on March 15 with additional information from KeyInfo.