COMPTEL: Pangaea extends its Ethernet reach

ORLANDO – Pangaea Networks, an Ethernet services company focused on enabling carriers to make end-to-end Ethernet connections for enterprise customers, today announced expansion of its services in New York and New Jersey through long-term leases of dark fiber facilities from Mobilitie.

Pangaea also is looking to expand into the Chicago market and has begun serving some enterprise customers, said Kevin Rocks, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Pangaea.

“Mobilitie does not provide lit services,” Rocks said. “Through this agreement, we will acquire a large amount of dark fiber that is completely [diverse from] Verizon and others in New York.”

The ability to provide physically diverse routes is key for service redundancy, Rocks said. By teaming with Pangaea, Mobilitie is also better able to cost-justify taking dark fiber into new buildings in the New York-New Jersey area.

Pangaea’s strategy to date has been selling Ethernet services at Layer 1 and Layer 2, and selling Ethernet over SONET, to carriers and service providers who need to deliver Ethernet connections to their enterprise customers.

“We are the go-between among many of the carriers because we link multiple providers and manage the circuits end-to-end,” Rocks explained. “Unlike in Europe, Ethernet is not ubiquitous here. In New York, it can depend on who owns the building or who owns the primary connections into that building.”

In some instances, service providers have facilities in a specific building but haven’t built out the entire riser and Pangaea can help provide service to a specific floor, Rocks said. “We enable [carriers] to get a deal they otherwise couldn’t get,” he said. For example, if Verizon is serving a building but has not yet deployed Ethernet, Pangaea will lease a DS-3 circuit from Verizon and provide and manage that circuit and the equipment converts traffic from Ethernet to TDM and back.

Increasingly, however, enterprise customers are coming directly to Pangaea, and Rocks anticipates expansion on that side of the business.

“As our reputation grows, some larger companies are coming directly to us,” Rocks said. “We didn’t target them, but we are working with some local governments, hospitals, hedge funds, and international customers.”

Pangaea is still too small to be seen as competition to the larger players, Rocks added, and will continue serving that market as well.