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Note: Think of us as a real estate company, says head of new dark fibre network
Allied Fiber is building a new dark fibre network from New York to Chicago, the first phase of a projected national US business. But CEO Hunter Newby draws the business model from carrier hotels or even real estate companies
Hunter Newby: Allied Fiber is essentially a whole new system
for the US in terms of how people will think about deploying
capital for physical fibre and co-location infrastructure
Allied Fiber has raised the finance to build a completely new fibre network in the US. Construction of phase one, 1,300 route miles or about 2,000 kilometres, has started but the whole project is for a network 11,500 miles long, or 18,500 kilometres.
It seems a long time since a company has raised money for a completely new optical fibre network across the US. This is the sort of thing that was going on at an unsustainable level in the late 1990s and the early part of this century, so why now?
"There is a need for physical infrastructure to be created now in every country in the world," says Hunter Newby, the CEO of Allied Fiber. "We have all evolved to a new reality, which is one of networks that drive everything we do. It doesn't matter if it's a mobile device or a television at home, or a credit card processing, or what you do at school or at work it's everything."
Apart from gardening, he jokes. "But even then you probably get some helpful tips off the internet from your BlackBerry or iPhone."
The finance, announced late in 2010, comes from a number of private equity partners, including affiliates of Falcon Investment Advisors and Abry Partners. The companies have not said how much they're investing in Allied Fiber.
Falcon Investments, founded in 2000, says it manages over $1 billion of capital and is actively seeking to invest $10 million to $75 million per transaction through its current fund. Abry was founded in 1989 and has taken part in $27 billion of leveraged transactions and other placements, relating to about 450 businesses.
Construction of the first phase of Allied Fiber's network linking New York City, Chicago and Ashburn,...