Broadwing expands with Corvis gear

Wholesale carrier Broadwing Communications has used ultralong-haul equipment from its parent company, Corvis, to expand its presence in Florida—Broadwing’s first significant network expansion since it became a Corvis subsidiary in June.

Broadwing lit 1200 miles of dark fiber between Atlanta and Miami that it had been leasing from Epik Communications since March 2000 as part of a fiber swap between the two companies.

According to a statement issued by Broadwing, the network expansion gives its customers in Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, Tallahassee, and other Florida cities additional bandwidth as well as more network diversity and route redundancy.

Corvis raised more than $73 million for ongoing Broadwing network expansion in an August private placement of common stock, but when asked if those funds were applied to the Florida expansion, Corvis vice president of investor and public relations Andrew Backman said, “I wouldn’t think of it that way.” The Florida expansion did not draw appreciably from those funds since it was done using equipment in Corvis’ existing inventory. Also, the transaction will not affect Corvis’ quarterly equipment revenues.

“Any sales to Broadwing are eliminated because Broadwing’s a subsidiary,” Backman said. “If you look at our income statement, you’ll see the eliminations number.”

The company plans to use funds from its August private placement to fuel further expansion, Backman added.

Broadwing has deployed line cards from its parent company throughout the past few months, Backman said, but the Florida expansion represents Broadwing’s first deployment of new Corvis equipment since the carrier became a Corvis subsidiary in June.

Broadwing was acquired by C III Communications, a joint venture owned mostly by Corvis and partially by investment firm Cequel III. Before that, Broadwing was one of Corvis’s biggest customers for optical networking equipment.

Last month, Corvis promised to offer more details regarding its Broadwing and equipment strategies in an Oct. 30 earnings call, but the company has since pushed back the date of the call to Nov. 5 “to give us an extra week to prepare,” said Backman.