USA FIBER, a company that engineers, builds and operates mission critical dark fiber networks for clients in the telecommunications, Internet, data center, government, research & education and enterprise space, has joined forces with Montgomery County Maryland and their leading ultraMontgomery program to interconnect the respective fiber networks.
ultraMontgomery is a keystone of County Executive Ike Leggett’s Six-Point Economic Plan. Mr. Leggett said, “We live at a time when Internet connectivity and network infrastructure is just as fundamental to our economic future as are transportation systems. We must have robust fiber networks to connect people with opportunities and move our economy at the speed of our ideas. USAFIBER’s investment to add core fiber infrastructure to the market is an important step for our community to serve our major businesses, research corridors and transit-oriented communities.”
USA FIBER has agreed to interconnect its new Ashburn to Baltimore core fiber route to the County’s communications network, FiberNet, which connects over 450 buildings in Montgomery County. Interconnecting the FiberNet network, approximately 570 route miles, of which 130 miles are underground, that the County has built to key buildings and campuses, back to the core low latency underground route USA FIBER has under construction, will open up new research, workforce development and technology growth opportunities for educational and government agencies inMontgomery County. In addition, as part of its ultraMontgomery program,Montgomery County will connect fiber constructed with federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grant funding toUSAFIBER to provide economic development opportunities for Montgomery County and its businesses.
“We are bringing Ashburn’s density and capabilities to Montgomery County, with the lowest latency available and at a distance and scope that enables the applications, services and communications to perform and create new possibilities for the next decades.Montgomery County businesses and government customers will now be able to directly connect to Ashburn without the need for any equipment to regenerate the optical signals. USA FIBER is committed to solving market problems with core fiber optic infrastructure. Investing our capital and expertise to add value to the community, providers and businesses is a core focus, especially when the engineering and construction are as challenging as the underground Potomac Crossing,” said Judd Carothers, President of USAFIBER.
Sonny Segal, Montgomery County CIO, said, “I am excited to see the investment USA FIBER is making in Montgomery County’seconomic future by enhancing the County’s overall high-speed, low-latency broadband connectivity to Northern Virginia. USAFIBER’s business model and technical architecture align well with the County Executive’s vision for his ultraMontgomery initiative. Their dark fiber peering platform potentially fills a strategic gap in the marketplace by offering clients the ability to connect to as many as 35 data centers, all of Ashburn’s cloud platforms, and hundreds of service providers. This also offers the County’s Federal agencies seeking shorter, lower latency, direct connections to Ashburn data centers a great alternative for disaster recovery and cloud first initiatives.”
