Lightower Expands All-Fiber Network in Northern New Jersey

Expansion Increases Big Bandwidth Services and Dark Fiber to NJ Data Centers and Financial Exchanges


BOXBOROUGH, MA--(Marketwire - October 30, 2009) - Lightower Fiber Networks, a leading metro fiber network and bandwidth service provider serving the northeast United States, announced today that it is expanding its state-of-the-art, all-fiber network in northern New Jersey. The network expansion will add new routes and fiber density plus connectivity to data centers and financial exchanges while at the same time providing additional capacity and dark fiber from New York City, through New Jersey, up to the Hudson Valley.

The network expansion enables customers to access Lightower dark fiber and managed services for high bandwidth, low latency connectivity in New Jersey data centers, financial exchanges, and office buildings.

This latest Lightower network expansion increases capacity and dark fiber from New York City, Weehawken, Secaucus, and Carlstadt, through northern New Jersey, up to Mahwah, Sterling Forest, Wappinger Falls, Chappaqua, the Hudson Valley, and the rest of the Lightower footprint including Boston.

Lightower customers have access in-to and out-of these expanded network resources with a full suite of custom engineered solutions including dark fiber, Ethernet, wavelengths, IP, and SONET.

Connectivity to Critical Financial Exchanges and Data Centers

"With this network expansion, Lightower has increased connectivity, or added connectivity, to critical financial exchanges, data centers, and commercial buildings in New Jersey. This network expansion demonstrates Lightower's on-going commitment to dark fiber in addition to our managed high-bandwidth services," stated Rob Shanahan, President and CEO of Lightower Fiber Networks. "Lightower can now offer customers lit services and dark fiber solutions in New Jersey as well as solutions connected to other key locations in New York City, Long Island, the Hudson Valley, Boston, or the rest of our footprint."

Additional Dark Fiber and Geographic Diversity

In addition to connecting new financial exchanges and data centers, Lightower has continued its unique approach to diverse fiber routing in its network. Lightower's fiber network offers customers geographic diversity for getting in and out of New York City, or for going around the city entirely.

"With this network expansion, Lightower adds new capacity and dark fiber inventory from New York City west into New Jersey and up into the Hudson Valley. The design complements our existing routes heading east out of New York City to Long Island and to the north into Westchester. This flexibility allows Lightower to custom design competitively diverse routes, fully protected routes, or routes that avoid New York entirely," added Jason Campbell, Senior Vice President of Engineering and Operations.

Lightower New Jersey Network Expansion Highlights include:

--  All Lightower services available to on-net buildings in area towns
    including Weehawken, Union City, Secaucus, and Carlstadt.
--  Increased capacity and dark fiber to 755 Secaucus Road in Secaucus.
--  Increased capacity and dark fiber to 300 Boulevard East in Weehawken.
--  New service and dark fiber to Meadowlands Parkway in Secaucus.
--  New service and dark fiber to Carlstadt.
--  Direct and low latency connections from New Jersey financial exchanges
    and data centers to other area sites including 111 Pavonia Avenue, 165
    Halsey Street, 111 8th Avenue, 60 Hudson Street, and 32 Avenue of the
    Americas.
--  DWDM Wavelength services to 40G.
--  Ethernet service from 10 Mbps to 10 Gbps.
--  New and increased dark fiber availability.
--  Custom designed building access, dark fiber, and lit networking
    solutions.
    

Since Lightower owns and operates its own network, including this new network expansion, customers can be assured that they will continue to receive excellent custom solution design and implementation in addition to Lightower's 24x7x36 proactive network support.

Lightower specializes in providing customers with a broad range of high bandwidth connectivity services as well as dark fiber and collocation services. With the rapid growth of its customer base and increasing demand for bandwidth, Lightower has upgraded its core network backbone to 40G and is uniquely equipped to provide connectivity services from 10 Mbps to 40 Gbps (Lightower's network is also 100G ready).

About Lightower Fiber Networks

Lightower Fiber Networks is a leading fiber network and broadband service provider in the Northeast. Lightower offers over 4,300 fiber route miles with over 1,630 on-net buildings coupled with comprehensive transport and alternative access solutions. Lightower's geographic footprint extends from Boston and southern New Hampshire, to eastern New York State, northern New Jersey, Long Island, and New York City. Lightower uniquely offers customers geographically diverse routing and low latency network solutions on an all-fiber optic network. Lightower Fiber is headquartered in Boxborough, MA. For more information, visit www.lightower.com or call 888-LT-FIBER.

Contact Information: For more information: Chris Knight Lightower Fiber Networks (978) 264-6024 www.lightower.com