A year later, in early 2001, the bandwidth mania went bust. Internet and telecom companies began closing, slowing the need for new fiber. But even as the industry slowed, some Florida companies that lay fiber have continued their work quietly, preparing for a better day. "Although there are fewer customers, the underlying demand for telecom is still growing," says Ron Mudry, president and CEO of St. Petersburg-based Progress Telecom, a subsidiary of Progress Energy, parent company of Florida Power.
Florida's fiber-optics companies today are focusing largely on developing intracity metro fiber networks -- rings of fiber that connect to both long-haul, intercity fiber and also to so-called "last mile" networks that link office and residential customers. "The long haul has been satisfied," says Neil Flynn, president of Miami's FPL Fibernet, a subsidiary of Juno Beach-based FPL Group. "On the metro side, we're still seeing strong demand."
FPL Fibernet has metro networks in eight Florida cities -- Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, West Palm Beach, Orlando, Jacksonville, Tampa and St. Petersburg. By the end of this year, the company will have invested $350 million in its metro network.
Progress Telecom agrees that the metro markets are where the action is today. The company has metro rings in 13 Florida cities and is continuing to expand its network in some of those areas. "We really feel that the metro market is the core of our business," says Progress Telecom's Mudry.
But Progress Telecom, which has fiber from New York to Miami, is also working to link second- and third-tier Florida markets -- cities like Ocala and Fort Myers -- to the long-haul backbone. "A lot of these second- and third-tier cities are still underserved," says Mudry.
Miami's New World Network is concentrating on another fiber niche: An 8,600-kilometer undersea fiber-optic ring connecting the U.S., Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean. "We don't have the same issues of fiber glut," says Matt Milstead, New World's COO.
Construction is complete on the undersea network, called the Americas Region Caribbean Optical-ring System, or ARCOS, and Milstead says the focus now is working with partners within each country to connect ARCOS' "landing points," places like Cancun, Mexico; Cartagena, Colombia; San Juan, Puerto Rico; North Miami Beach; and points in 10 other countries. Of New World's partners, Milstead says, "We provide the international connectivity; they provide the domestic."
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