Global Crossing: Google crowd driving dark fiber sales

Demand is growing for Global Crossing's dark fiber, thanks to Google and companies like it, executives said today while reporting the carrier’s 2005 earnings.

Global Crossing has recently seen an increase in sales of so-called indefeasible rights of use, or IRUs, which involve the leasing of dark fiber routes. When one analyst on today’s conference call asked specifically about Google, which is rumored to be building a dark fiber network, Global Crossing Chief Executive Officer John Legere said, “[The increase in dark fiber sales] is being driven by the emergence of what would have been, two or three years ago, nontraditional players like the ones [sic] you outlined. All of them are talking to us, and we expect that to be part of the growth we show in 2006.”

Global Crossing is seeing an increase in lit capacity demand across the board as well, said Anthony Christie, the company’s chief marketing officer, who noted recent data claiming that carriers in several regions of the globe are now using 60% to 65% of their purchased network capacity.

“If you’re a big service provider, it’s getting to the point where you’ve got to back up your own network,” Christie said. “Any time you’ve got more than 50% of your network used, you’ve got to back it up. That suggests we’re going to see--and we are seeing--pickup in demand for capacity, both terrestrial and subsea. And we’re also seeing, frankly, a bit of pickup in the IRU business to support that.”

The company reaffirmed its expectation of turning EBITDA-positive sometime in the first half of this year and cash flow positive sometime in the second half.