Open access fiber infrastructure provider Netly Fiber is looking beyond the speeds of tomorrow and aiming to meet the demands of the next decade and beyond, debuting its first terabit-capable network in Solana Beach, California. And that’s for consumers and businesses alike.
Founded in 2017, Netly is led by CEO Jack Demers. He told Fierce that while its decision to enable terabit speeds might seem like overkill today, Netly is aiming to create an asset that will last well into the future.
“The critics would say ‘well no one needs terabit.’ And that’s true, they don’t need it today. But we’ve seen we’re still in the infancy of internet growth,” Demers explained. “In decades to come, terabit will be the norm.” For context, 1 terabit per second is equal to 1,000 gigabits per second.
“We’ve taken a different approach, which is to say if you’re going to build it…we should do it once and make sure there is enough conduit and enough fiber that we will never run out,” he said.
He told Fierce Netly has been working with fiber vendor Corning since 2018 to develop network infrastructure capable of delivering terabit speeds. The pair accomplished this by designing an architecture which pushes dedicated fiber strands to every home, business, municipal building and wireless site in town. This approach, Demers said, eliminates the need for splitters and other active components in the network that can slow speeds. While it is slightly more expensive that traditional PON fiber networks, it is not significantly so, he added.
As an open access fiber provider, Netly supplies just the fiber asset in the ground, allowing ISPs which ride on its network to choose their own optics and speed capabilities. For instance, Ting Internet is its anchor tenant in Solana Beach and is currently offering 1 Gbps speeds. But “they could flip a switch and offer 10-gig tomorrow, and as optics improve and costs come down the asset in the ground will handle terabit speeds so they can continue to improve and innovate and upgrade over time,” Demers said.
According to Demers, Solana Beach is the first of many cities Netly hopes to supply with terabit-capable infrastructure. Already it’s about 30% to 40% of the way through a build in neighboring Encinitas, California and it is planning to announce projects in two additional cities later this year. Eventually, Demers said the goal is to “be building two or three cities at a time” and up to 10 per year.
It used Corning’s SMF-28 Ultra 200 micron bend insensitive single mode fiber in Solana Beach and is planning to use the same in the other cities it builds out.
Darin Howe, application solutions manager at Corning, in a statement called Netly’s system “the industry’s new gold standard.” He continued “by densifying dedicated fibers throughout, Netly’s system provides ultimate flexibility for the future.”
Though Demers didn’t say where exactly Netly is planning to go after Encinitas, he noted it is targeting tier-2 cities that can support its business model.