Lightpath announces LightCube edge data centres

Author: Simon Rowley

Lightpath, an all-fibre, infrastructure-based connectivity provider seeking to revolutionise how organisations connect to their digital destinations, has closed the transaction to acquire substantially all of the assets of United Fiber and Data (UFD). The company has also introduced LightCube edge data centres, which will first be deployed along its NYC-Ashburn strategic network route.

The company states that the asset additions elevate its position in the digital infrastructure industry, and expand its reach in the New York Metro and Ashburn markets. Lightpath adds the geographically diverse, 323-mile NYC-Ashburn route, as the company continues to amass new and unique route options between these markets. Lightpath also adds 79-miles of metro fibre in New Jersey and New York City, and approximately 250 new commercial service locations in Manhattan. Lightpath now offers over 1,500 enterprise and data centre service locations in Manhattan alone, a five-fold increase over the last three years.

Lightpath’s New York City to Ashburn network route is geographically diverse from typical network routes along the I-95 corridor and offers the industry’s lowest latency between the largest population centre in the country and the largest data centre and cloud ecosystem in the world. Service options on this route include dark fibre and wavelengths up to 800 Gbps.

Tim Haverkate, EVP of Major Infrastructure Solutions at Lightpath, comments, “This route represents a unique opportunity for customers to connect these critical markets with diversity, latency management, and soon, the addition of edge compute facilities. Lightpath has seen surging demand on this route, with nearly 25% of the cable under contract, a 3.5 times increase since the transaction was initially announced. Further, we are engaged in active conversations with 20 customers resulting in an opportunity pipeline that would oversubscribe the route as it exists today.”

Lightpath customers can connect to almost any data centre in the Ashburn region and, in total, can connect to over 140 data centres across its footprint. Lightpath can route customers from any on-net data centres in New York Metro or Boston Metro to Ashburn utilising this route, while also delivering routing options along the I-95 corridor to support services on the NYC-Ashburn route.

Lightpath has also introduced LightCube edge data centres – modular, secure, and customisable facilities that fully support the capacity for 864-count fibre cables and the corresponding space and power for edge compute workloads. Lightpath will be upgrading four existing ILAs on the NYC-Ashburn route with new LightCubes in response to customer demand.

“This route represents a strategic addition to the Lightpath network, extending our reach from the north-east into the ever-expanding data centre ecosystem in Ashburn,” states Chris Morley, CEO of Lightpath. “We will continue to aggressively pursue organic and inorganic opportunities to meet both the metro and the long-haul requirements on behalf of our hyperscaler, carrier, and enterprise customers.”

For more from Lightpath, click here.