Copper Leads XO’s Ethernet Push

Like most service providers, XO Communications Inc. (OTC: XOHO) dreams of offering ubiquitous Ethernet coverage. The company announced today that it has made significant strides towards that as it has expanded its national Ethernet footprint to cover more than half a million business locations in 75 markets. (See XO Offers National Ethernet.)

XO says it has accomplished this mostly thanks to its three-pronged approach of pushing Ethernet over fiber, copper, and wireless, with copper playing a big role in the recent expansion.

Rather than continue pushing into new markets, XO will focus on improving upon areas where it has seen most of its success.

“Obviously we want to be as ubiquitous as we can be,” says Matt Alexander, XO’s senior product manager for Ethernet services. “We’re going to focus on areas where we’ve had success and that mostly involves Ethernet over copper with Hatteras Networks Inc. equipment.”

XO’s big Ethernet over copper push in 2007 leaves it well positioned to both serve its own customers and to lend a hand to other carriers. “They do have a nice mixture of fiber and copper,” says Stan Hubbard of Heavy Reading. “The good thing for them is, there are other operators who want to deliver Ethernet services in their markets, and they’ll turn to XO to get that last mile over copper.”

XO confirms it has piqued the interest of a few major players but won’t say who just yet. “A formal wholesale of Ethernet -- that hasn’t been launched yet, but we’ve had discussions since the beginning of this year,” Alexander says.

For now, XO is done expanding its national footprint and will shift its focus in 2008 to improving service in its existing markets. “Our footprint is pretty much defined. We focused on copper and serial last year and now we’re looking to take advantage and fine tune our areas of strength,” says Alexander.

Within its 75 markets, XO will be offering its mid-band Ethernet over copper services in the range of 10 Mbit/s to 88 Mbit/s and up to 10 Gbit/s on its fiber network.

— Raymond McConville, Reporter, Light Reading