Uniti Group signs long-haul dark fiber agreement with global internet provider

Uniti Group announced that it has signed a long-term contract with a large global internet provider, offering long-haul dark fiber connectivity to premier data centers located in 12 cities within the Central and Southeastern United States. The routes include El Paso, TX to San Antonio, TX, Indianapolis, IN to Nashville, TN, Nashville, TN to Atlanta, GA, Dallas, TX to Beaumont, TX, Houston, TX to Jacksonville, FL, Tallahassee, FL to Tampa, FL, and Miami, FL to Tampa, FL. The agreement provides scalable and secure transport over a combined 3,100 fiber route miles, connecting several Internet traffic aggregation points and key infrastructure hubs for Uniti’s customer. The Houston, TX to Jacksonville, FL route will require Uniti to build ten new In-Line Amplifier, ILA, shelters where its customer will lease space and power to regenerate their optical signal. These locations will not only allow Uniti to lease additional space and power to other customers, but they will also allow Uniti to regenerate its own optical signal as it deploys its Private Wave Channel product along this route in the near future. "Today’s announcement represents one of the largest customer contracts, by total contract value, in Uniti’s history, encompassing over 10,600 fiber strand miles," said Greg Ortyl, President of Wholesale and Strategic Accounts. "This existing customer continues to demonstrate confidence in Uniti’s ability to deliver unique, end-to-end infrastructure solutions that meet their increasing bandwidth demands. Furthermore, the new ILA shelters position us for incremental space and power lease-up and quicker deployment intervals of our PWC product when we commence the lighting of Houston to Jacksonville, allowing Uniti to offer 100G, 400G and spectrum services along this route."