SAN FRANCISCO and LOUISVILLE, Colo., Jan. 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — FiberTower Corporation (Nasdaq: FTWR), a wireless backhaul services provider, and Zayo Group (“Zayo”), a provider of telecom and internet infrastructure and carrier neutral colocation services, have entered into a multi-year agreement to lease 2,500 fiber miles of dark fiber on a long-term basis with an option to lease additional fiber.
Zayo Fiber Solutions (ZFS), the dark fiber focused business unit of Zayo, will be providing FiberTower with connectivity to existing on-net sites and will also build to off-net sites. ZFS has over 8,500 route miles of dark fiber network serving 40 markets in 20 states.
Kurt Van Wagenen, FiberTower’s president and chief executive officer, stated, “To serve the explosive demand for wireless backhaul, FiberTower has been executing on an aggressive growth strategy, which includes expanding our fiber footprint in both existing and new markets. Our enhanced relationship with ZFS provides cost effective, long term access to its extensive dark fiber footprint, enabling us to better support the backhaul needs of our customers.”
“The telecom and internet infrastructure service we provide, dark fiber, acts as a key building block that allows our customers to cost effectively support the continued rapid growth in wireless, video, data networks and the internet,” stated Matt Erickson, president of ZFS. “We are eager to pursue scalable fiber solutions for our customers, as we have with FiberTower, and we look forward to this collaboration.”