Allied Fiber, a New York-based startup, yesterday unveiled plans to build a US-wide dark fiber network in six stages.
The company plans to build a cable system linking US subsea landing points with major data centers, co-location facilities, rural networks, and wireless towers, and has invested $140 million (€114 million) in phase one alone, which will link New York, Chicago and Ashburn.
Allied hopes its wholesale network will solicit customers ranging from submarine cable operators and international retail operators, to small rural carriers and cable TV companies in the long run.
But the most likely customers in the short term are smaller ISPs that are currently forced to pay exorbitant costs for domestic backhaul.
The network will also link directly to subsea cable systems linking the Atlantic, Caribbean, Pacific, and Latin American cables.
"We created this system to address the numerous backhaul and capacity issues that exist in the marketplace today,” CEO Hunter Newby said.
“You need to change the economics,” he told GigaOM. “And if these buyers can buy at even $15 per megabyte…the number of gigs and terabytes will eclipse the current rate because right now it’s so expensive.”
The first phase in the build-out of the 11,548-mile network should be complete by Q4. The second and third stages will cost a respective $180 million and $350 million, Newby told GigaOM, however future phases have not yet been costed.
Parts of the rollout will be conducted by US vendors Michels Communications, Henkels & McCoy and Adesta.