Windstream is laying a foundation to expand its wholesale service presence in the Western market by lighting a set of new diverse 500G routes from Denver to Chicago and Dallas.
Leveraging Infinera's DTN-X platform, the new routes will offer its service provider customers the option to order 100G wavelengths in these markets.
Customers that need to transport data to the East from Denver can interconnect with Windstream at their point of presence at 910 15th street. From that point, Windstream's Carrier Solutions group can provide 100G connectivity to over 40 locations and 1G to 10G connectivity options to over 1,200 locations in Windstream's 33 state transport footprint, including Tier 1 and tertiary markets across the United States.
The southern route connects back to Dallas, which has multiple 100G routing options, while the northern route passes through Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska with direct connectivity eastward to Chicago to further meet the diversity needs of Windstream's customers.
It plans to provide wavelength services from 1G to 100G speeds across 121,000 miles of fiber and 100G services in 44 markets by the end of the year. Through its Carrier Portal, Windstream will also offer standardized 10G pricing throughout its regional and metro fiber networks in 33 states.
Jeff Brown, director of product marketing and product management for Windstream Carrier Solutions, told FierceTelecom that these new routes are part of a broader strategy Windstream has taken to leverage its existing fiber network assets to offer 100G and above capabilities to its carrier customer base.
"The point behind the expansion was to try and broaden the coverage of the Windstream network and make us more of a national carrier," Brown said. "Clearly, we're not all the way to the West Coast yet, but for 2015 we did an extensive amount of expansive for the network to where we're now going to offer 100G in 44 markets."
Brown said Windstream is finding interest in its 100G wavelength services from a host of customers, including traditional carriers and increasingly content providers.
"We're seeing quite a bit of success in selling high bandwidth service to different verticals, not just carriers, but also cable companies and content web-scale providers," Brown said. "Those customers have been in the carrier portfolio since the summer and we've been aggressively working with those companies."
This route is just one of many that Windstream has planned for its Carrier Solutions customers.
Brown said that it plans to offer a similar route in Miami in the coming weeks, for example.
"We'll be announcing our Miami expansion with our 500 G core going down to the NAP of Americas," Brown said.
Adding 100G services to its wholesale mix is just one of several moves Windstream has made to realign its Carrier Services unit.
In October, Windstream announced it realigned its Carrier Solutions business unit to focus on selling services to specific market segments. It named Joe Scattareggia to senior vice president of Carrier Solution sales. In his new position, Scattareggia will oversee all sales teams within the Carrier organization, which are being realigned to focus on wholesale verticals like cable operators, traditional carriers and content providers.
For more:
- see the release
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