TW Telecom Continues Relentless Expansion

Tw telecom had another busy week, announcing another major expansion and its latest quarterlies where it brought in over $393 million but lost $9.4 million in the process. On the expansion front, the managed service provider will build out metro fiber in 5 new market areas, and expand fiber in a third of the markets already served. Overall, this fiber footprint increased some 17 percent. On the financial front, revenue was actually up 6.6 percent compared to the last year, but the company is investing heavily in its ambitious expansion.

 “Expanding our fiber infrastructure will allow us to build on our nationwide network by increasing our addressable market, extending our regional connectivity and strengthening key corridors of commerce for our existing operations,” said John Blount, Chief Operating Officer. “By accelerating the expansion of our existing markets using our established operational teams and infrastructure, as well as entering new cities where our customers already have networking needs, this expansion gives us quick access to current demand and an accelerated path to greater revenue opportunities.”

 The expansion is based on deals with regional and metro fiber providers and will require a $120 million lease obligation for this calendar quarter. “Our multi-market expansion will leverage our proven investment model, national network, Ethernet leadership and our powerful and scalable integrated nationwide platform to rapidly rollout products and services across our expanding footprint,” said Larissa Herda, tw telecom's Chairman, CEO and President.

The markets tw is focused on include Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Richmond and Salt Lake City.

 Earlier Expansion

 Earlier this year tw announced other expansion agreements. The company picked up two new two partners to add size to its data center footprint, including CoreSite Realty Corporation, which is tapping into tw telecom’s Business Ethernet services. The company is also using Sentinel Data Centers to expand capacity.