AboveNet has announced that it is expanding its international network to key European markets with growing demand for dedicated, high performance and high bandwidth services. Customers will be able to connect seamlessly between the U.S., London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Paris.

The expansion provides high bandwidth customers with connectivity between and within top business hubs in the U.S. and Europe. Customers will benefit from AboveNet's wide range of next-generation optical, Ethernet and IP-based services and existing infrastructure that includes 2 million fiber miles in 16 metro markets, an intercity network spanning approximately 12,000 route miles and a global Tier 1 IP backbone.

AboveNet's expansion specifically targets markets with a high concentration of web-centric businesses, financial services organizations and enterprises with a multinational presence. These markets also have a significant number of private and carrier neutral data centers as well as being key Internet hub cities which further increases high bandwidth transport demand.

"Ovum's recent research found that European markets are indeed moving towards high bandwidth Ethernet requirements with more enterprises now investing in this type of infrastructure to conduct business competitively," said Ian Redpath, Principal Analyst at Ovum. "AboveNet's focus on high bandwidth services and strategy of offering their capability in more key markets in a seamless manner will resonate with these target customers."

AboveNet focuses exclusively on enterprise and carrier customers who need high-bandwidth data connectivity as a mission critical part of their business infrastructure. With AboveNet's network expansion, these businesses will have an alternate choice to meet their bandwidth needs to ensure performance and reliability across their international locations.  

The new network infrastructure will include dynamic optical networks based on ROADM technology in each of London, Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam with an advanced IP/Ethernet router layer to support packet-based services. These markets will also be interconnected with a highly scalable European long-haul network with over 3.5Tbps of system capacity as well as transatlantic circuit capacity to the U.S. network. In total, these investments will provide seamless, scalable and high performance capability across these key European markets.

The network expansion is also centered on key data centers and will allow AboveNet to deliver services directly to over 30 of the most significant data centers in these markets.  AboveNet is already connected to more than 400 data centers globally and is a leading provider of data center connectivity. The company expects the expansion to be completed in 2010.

"AboveNet remains focused on investing in markets where bandwidth demands continue to increase," said Bill LaPerch, chief executive officer of AboveNet. "The expansion of our network across Europe will enable existing and new customers to benefit from the fastest speeds and most secure connections to their business critical data and applications."