Hi Mike, welcome to the brave new world of dark fiber.
A good place to start is at their web site.
mmnf.com , and their network map:
mmfn.com
While the web site map hasn't kept up to date (there are several tell tale signs of this throughout) with their actual routes, it is still useful to a great extent in understanding the standard approach they are using for physical layer ring construction. Make sure you use the zoom and drill down capabilities if you go there, in order to see what I am referring to. NY City is a good example. And for sure, this one (NYC) only shows the backbone, without showing the subsidiary builds to large clients and some of the smaller carriers and colos.
As far as the seemingly out of line financials, for starters, MFN is a relatively young firm, as things go, in terms of their major buildouts since the Metromedia transaction. Prior to that point, they were National Fiber Networks Inc. or NFN, and their reach was relatively limit. Despite their first franchises being awarded in the early 90s, they didn't really begin to take off until last year, until after the takeover.
I'look a little more closely at their method of accounting, and hopefully be able to rationalize what appears like a discrepancy, but is actually explained by the nature of dark fiber business transactions and commitments. These are not your run of the mill monthly leasing deals. In many cases they take into account some concepts that are uncommon elsewhere. For example, in various forms of IRU (indefeasible right of use) leasing, there are a number of ways to distribute reportable revenues.
Terms can be drawn out over 10, 15 or even more years, lumped, or even contingent on other factors having to do with ultimate bandwidth utilization (in the case of dwdm'ed facilities).
The mileage they site are fiber miles, not route miles. In determining fiber miles, the route mile needs to be multiplied by the number of strands in the route. So, for a 10 mile route consisting of one four inch conduit, with four smaller inner ducts, and each innerduct containing 864 strands of multimode, then that 10 mile route would consist of
10 miles * 4inner ducts * 864 strands = 34,560 fiber miles
Gotta run now. I'll do some more diligence on the accounting practices and make certain that my understanding is correct before getting back to you on this score.
Regards, Frank Coluccio |
