Zayo expands 400G fibre to connect Paris and Marseilles | Computer Weekly

Leading global communications infrastructure platform provider Zayo Group Holdings has announced the deployment of a 400G-enabled fibre route connecting Paris and Marseilles.

Paris is the fourth largest internet connectivity hub in the world and Marseilles is projected to move from the seventh to fifth largest global internet hub in the next three years, creating a rapidly increasing need for enterprises to transport traffic growth from these hubs throughout Europe and to other key commerce centres across the globe.

With six new subsea cables in Marseilles scheduled for completion – including key gateways to Asia, Africa and the Middle East – capacity demands in Marseilles are expected to quadruple by 2026. This, according to Zayo, is creating a rapidly increasing need for enterprises to transport traffic growth from these hubs throughout Europe and to other key commerce centres across the globe. 

The route will also provide direct access to Bordeaux – the landing city for Amitié, a new private transatlantic cable that will connect the US with the UK and France. Once ready for service, the connection will enable direct access to Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

The Zayo Paris-to-Marseilles route will provide 24TB (terabytes) of total expected capacity per fibre pair, critical triversity options and 400G enablement for enterprises to manage this capacity growth and ensure secure, resilient connectivity. Beyond capacity, Zayo said it was hardening its network with new fibre technologies, making it the first carrier with this next-generation fibre on the route connecting Paris and Marseille.

“We are continuously expanding, improving and diversifying our network to support our customers with their increasing bandwidth,” said Zayo Europe chief operating officer Yannick Leboyer. “With several new subsea cable projects set to deploy in the coming years, Marseilles is on its way to becoming one of the top five internet connectivity hubs globally, and Zayo is uniquely positioned to provide the necessary infrastructure to support this growth.”

Leboyer added that the 400G-enabled route connecting Paris and Marseilles was “built to support and transport the fast-paced bandwidth growth and increasingly high demand for connectivity in these markets, giving customers a more reliable, scalable and secure way to share data to the rest of Europe and the US”.

To date, Zayo owns and operates 2.2 million kilometres of fibre and connects 16 key metro markets and nine countries across Europe. It also owns and operates a Tier 1 IP backbone spanning 137,000 miles across North America and Europe. The new route is part of Zayo’s overall strategy to overlay its European backbone and deliver high-capacity bandwidth across Europe, following the completion of its Zeus subsea cable in 2022, which is claimed to provide the strongest connection between the UK and continental Europe.