Zayo Group has acquired metro bandwidth infrastructure services provider Litecast for $22 million cash to extend its Baltimore fiber network
Connectivity and colocation provider Zayo Group announced on Wednesday that it has acquired metro bandwidth infrastructure services provider Litecast for $22 million cash to extend its fiber network in Baltimore.
Litecast’s metropolitan fiber network connects over 110 on-net buildings including all of Baltimore’s major data centers and carrier hotels.
The acquisition will further extend Zayo’s fiber network in the greater Baltimore-Washington region, which grew 130,000 fiber miles with its prior acquisition of Alexandria, Virginia-based FiberGate in June 2012.
By growing its fiber network in the Washington, Maryland and Northern Virginia region, Zayo will be better equipped to take on more government clients. Currently, Litecast provides dark fiber and Ethernet-based services to enterprises and government customers, particularly in the healthcare and education segments.
Zayo is not the only carrier to grow its fiber network recently to better serve enterprise and government clients. Last week, Lightower Fiber Networks and Sidera Networks signed an agreement to be acquired and merged in order to develop a network capable of providing high-quality fiber-based networking services to enterprise, carrier and government clients.
“The Litecast acquisition further strengthens Zayo’s fiber presence in the increasingly important Baltimore-Washington metropolitan market,” Dan Caruso, president and CEO of Zayo Group said in a statement. “By combining the former AboveNet, FiberGate and Litecast networks, Zayo has the premier fiber assets in the mid-Atlantic region.”
Zayo said it has already completed many of the planned integration activities due to Litecast’s concentrated network geography and focused product set and size. It is unclear from the press release what the integration activities refer to specifically.
Zayo will offer Litecast customers its suite of bandwidth infrastructure products across its regional, national and international fiber networks, according to the press release.
The Zayo network includes 67,000 route miles, serving 45 states and Washington, D.C. Its network serves over 10,000 on-net buildings, including over 500 data centers.
Talk back: What do you think of Zayo’s extension of its mid-Atlantic fiber network? Have you expanded near Washington D.C. to position yourself as a government service provider? Let us know in a comment.
About Nicole Henderson
Nicole Henderson is the Editor in Chief of the Web Host Industry Review where she covers daily news and features online, as well as in print. She has a bachelor of journalism from Ryerson University in Toronto. You can find her on Twitter @NicoleHenderson.
