CenturyLink goes for enhanced fibre network throughout Europe

CenturyLink is expanding its reach in Europe with new metro networks in Madrid, Spain and Marseille, and France.

Additionally the company is connecting an additional 90 data centres to its network in six core markets. These strategic expansions, in key hubs of business and commerce in Europe, will deliver high speed connectivity and advanced technology solutions through CenturyLink’s secure, global network.

“Our new fibre expansions in Europe take CenturyLink’s network and technology services deeper and closer to our customers,” said Richard Warley, regional president, EMEA, CenturyLink. “This puts us where we need to be to meet their growing and evolving digital business needs, as well as enhance their customer experience with new technology solutions. This regional investment reflects CenturyLink’s global focus to continue enhancing our significant fiber network for fueling innovation.”

In Madrid, CenturyLink has built a metro network footprint of 40 route miles, creating a ring that spans major business districts, including the city centre, financial areas, and Madrid’s Silicon Alley. The infrastructure will connect key enterprise buildings and an initial five core data centers to CenturyLink for providing fast, secure networking solutions.

CenturyLink’s expansion in Marseille, one of Europe’s largest digital gateways, enhances its ability to deliver both local and international connectivity services. It built out a dense metro fibre footprint, creating a ring that spans major business districts, including multiple enterprise buildings and, initially, three core data centres. The infrastructure will connect key landing stations in Marseille which will provide access to strategic sub-sea cables connecting to the Middle East, Far East and East Africa. This network foundation will provide enterprise and wholesale customers with direct access to localised transport and IP services in Marseille and route diversity options that maximise network availability and minimise latency.

CenturyLink is connecting 90 additional data centres to its network within the UK and Ireland, Benelux, DACH, Nordics, Southern Europe and Eastern Europe. The data centres will be equipped to offer a mix of virtual network services and applications, as well as deliver high performance connections to leading private and public cloud service providers, including AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure. The network connection of 50 data centres is expected to be completed by the end of 2019. The additional 40 data centres are expected to be network connected by mid-2020.

Today’s news builds on CenturyLink’s announcement earlier this year that it is creating an extensive 4.7 million fibre mile intercity fibre network across the US and parts of Europe.