Windstream dishes on long-haul fiber progress

Windstream Wholesale, Windstream’s optical transport division, touted it’s reached a “major construction milestone” on its CanAm2 long-haul fiber build, a 440-mile route that will eventually connect Montreal, Canada, to New York City. The Canadian portion of the route—from Montreal to the New York state border—is substantially complete, said Karl-Arne Hegewald, Windstream’s SVP of network infrastructure and program management. He noted Montreal is “an important growth hub” for content providers and other data centers. The company expects to complete the segment from the border to Albany by the end of first quarter 2024, and then complete the extension from Albany to New York City by the end of 2024. While Windstream has an existing Montreal-New York route, that infrastructure is aging and “demands for new high-capacity long-haul technology point to the need for new glass.” “Fortunately, we have spare conduit along much of the route that we are leveraging, which eases some of the build cost,” said Hegewald.