Lumen said yesterday that it plans to significantly increase its potential capacity nationwide. The company plans to add 6 million fiber miles to its intercity fiber network over the next several years. The move takes advantage of Lumen’s existing extra conduits, meaning they don’t have to dig, just pull.
The conduits derive mostly from the original buildouts by the former companies absorbed by today’s Lumen. The biggest chunk comes from Level 3 Communications, which famously buried 12 conduits on much of its original longhaul build. But Qwest and WilTel each had additional conduit, and all of that and more wound up in Lumen’s hands eventually too. Some of that conduit has been leveraged in other efforts, but the result is that Lumen can and now apparently will overpull an actual national fiber footprint.
