ultraMontgomery Program Partners with USA Fiber (PHOTO)

USA FIBER is partnering with Montgomery County and its ultraMontgomery program to interconnect the respective fiber networks, with the purpose of improving Internet connectivity and network infrastructure.

ultraMontgomery is a part of  County Executive Ike Leggett’s Six Point Economic Plan. Leggett provided the following statement about the partnership in a news release:

“We live at a time when Internet connectivity and network infrastructure is just as fundamental to our economic future as are transportation systems.  We must have robust fiber networks to connect people with opportunities and move our economy at the speed of our ideas. USA FIBER’s investment to add core fiber infrastructure to the market is an important step for our community to serve our major businesses, research corridors and transit-oriented communities.”

The partnership will allow USA FIBER to interconnect the company’s new Ashburn to Baltimore core fiber route to the County’s communications network, Fibernet. Fibernet connects to more than 450 buildings in Montgomery County.

According to a news release, the County will also connect fiber constructed with federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grant funds to USA FIBER, which will provide opportunities for economic development.

Montgomery County CIO Sonny Segal provided the following statement about the partnership:

“I am excited to see the investment USA FIBER is making in Montgomery County’s economic future by enhancing the County’s overall high-speed, low-latency broadband connectivity to Northern Virginia.  USA FIBER’s business model and technical architecture align well with the County Executive’s vision for his ultraMontgomery initiative.  Their dark fiber peering platform potentially fills a strategic gap in the marketplace by offering clients the ability to connect to as many as 35 data centers, all of Ashburn’s cloud platforms, and hundreds of service providers.  This also offers the County’s Federal agencies seeking shorter, lower latency, direct connections to Ashburn data centers a great alternative for disaster recovery and cloud first initiatives.”

For more information about ultraMontgomery, you can visit the County Executive’s website. For more information about USA FIBER you can visit the company’s website.

About Maureen Chowdhury

Maureen Chowdhury is a multimedia journalist with Montgomery Community Media. She can be reached at mchowdhury@mymcmedia.org and on Twitter at @MediaMaureen. Maureen authors the blog Sound Check on MyMCMedia.

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