Zayo’s Unique Long-Haul Routes: Setting the Standard for Network Resilience
Blog
|September 22, 2025
Network infrastructure decisions can make or break your business operations. While many organizations struggle with shared bandwidth and limited control, Zayo’s unique long-haul routes offer a different path forward – one that enables your business to scale with your ambition.
Zayo’s long-haul Dark Fiber and Wavelength network solutions provide unparalleled security, scalability, and reliability, offering you the choice that best suits your network needs. Let’s explore each of Zayo’s unique routes and how they help businesses achieve their unique network goals.
Zayo’s Unmatched Fiber Backbone
Zayo’s unique Dark Fiber and Wavelength routes provide carrier-diverse, high-performance connectivity on our physically diverse, independently owned fiber network; the largest in North America. Our robust dark fiber network enables unmatched scalability, redundancy, and reliability and serves as the backbone for all of our lit services, ensuring businesses receive seamless, future-ready connectivity tailored to their evolving demands.
The Value of Zayo’s Unique Dark Fiber Routes
Dark Fiber offers organizations a secure, customizable fiber infrastructure, allowing them full control over network capacity, transmission equipment, and fiber routes to meet high performance, security, and scalability needs. This complete operational flexibility makes dark fiber an ideal choice for businesses aiming to operate secure, scalable networks. Here’s how:
- Proven Technology: Scalable, low latency, reliable infrastructure enables high-speed, high-capacity data transfer.
- Scalability: Easily scale bandwidth by upgrading transmission equipment without adding fiber, supporting future data demands and new technologies.
- Resilience: Diverse network architecture, critical for operational continuity, minimizing losses from outages, cyberattacks, or natural disasters.
Closing the Infrastructure Divide with Wavelengths
Zayo’s unique Wavelength routes are ecosystem-diverse fiber paths unavailable from other providers, specifically designed to bridge critical infrastructure gaps. These routes offer diversity from existing networks, scalable capacity, low latency, and often extend connectivity to previously unserved rural areas, ensuring a more robust and expansive infrastructure ecosystem.
For unmatched network resilience, businesses turn to Zayo’s unique Wavelength routes, offering reliable and diverse connectivity through geographically separated fiber paths, including tri- and quad-verse options.
Zayo’s Unique Routes
Today, Zayo operates 21 unique Dark Fiber and Wavelengths routes across North America, each strategically positioned to address specific market needs and infrastructure gaps. These routes collectively span thousands of miles and connect major economic centers with the most advanced fiber technology available, with new routes completed each year.
Universal Route Characteristics
Every Zayo unique route shares these critical features:
- 100% Underground Construction: All routes are buried underground, providing maximum physical security and protection from weather, accidents, and intentional damage. This underground construction significantly reduces the risk of service interruptions.
- Optimized for Low Latency: Routes are typically designed to provide the shortest possible distance between endpoints, minimizing signal travel time for applications that require real-time data transmission.
- Physical Diversity: Every route is built to be geographically diverse from other fiber providers and from Zayo’s existing network infrastructure, maximizing redundancy options.
- Strategic Market Connections: Routes connect key business centers, financial markets, and data center hubs where enterprises need the most reliable connectivity.
Portland - Umatilla - Reno
Las Vegas - Tucson
Dallas - Atlanta
Chicago - Memphis - St. Louis - New Orleans
Chicago - New Jersey
Pittsburgh - Columbus
Columbus - Ashburn
D.C. - Columbus - Atlanta
Denver - Salt Lake City
Reno - Las Vegas (NDOT/DEAN)
Dallas - El Paso
Chicago - Toronto
Los Angeles - Phoenix
Las Vegas - Reno
Chicago – Columbus
Seattle – Vancouver
Sacramento – Reno – Salt Lake – Denver
Denver – Chicago
Wawaka – Columbus
San Diego – Dallas
St. Louis - Indianapolis
Portland – Umatilla – Reno
Our Portland-to-Umatilla route offers a unique solution for customers seeking greater network diversity along the West Coast. Offering both Dark Fiber and Wavelengths services, this east-to-west connection seamlessly integrates with existing West Coast Long Haul Dark Fiber networks and western subsea networks, while enabling access to emerging diverse routes in the region. It also links to new pathways between Umatilla, Reno, and the broader Central Mountain Region, ensuring enhanced connectivity and flexibility for your network needs.
Las Vegas – Tucson
Zayo is enhancing its unique network connecting Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Tucson by expanding routes between key data center locations. This development plays a pivotal role in the growth of Zayo’s AI-ready networks, linking critical and emerging AI markets in the Phoenix region. Delivering both Dark Fiber and Wavelengths services, this strategically designed route seamlessly integrates with major data center hubs in El Paso and Dallas. Constructed entirely underground, this network offers exceptional security and delivers the lowest latency between cities along this newly established path.
Dallas – Atlanta
This Wavelengths route is the lowest latency, and most direct route between Dallas and Atlanta. This route also enables low latency data transport connecting Dallas, Ashburn, and New York. This route is the most stable, secure solution in the Southern Gulf region and uses brand new fiber. This offers natural disaster diversity for customers buying fiber on routes that go further south through New Orleans, offering alternative routing from northern routes through Nashville.
Chicago – Memphis – St. Louis – New Orleans
This distinct underground route bridges New Orleans with major tech and financial hubs in Chicago, creating a vital connection between southern and midwestern markets while seamlessly integrating with existing Dark Fiber networks. This unique route offers both Wavelength and Dark Fiber services to developing tech markets in Memphis and St. Louis, delivering ultra-low latency and unparalleled uptime for businesses operating in these regions.
Chicago – New Jersey
This critical pathway provides an unparalleled, direct connection between two major financial markets, delivering exceptional low latency and high resilience through both our Wavelengths and Dark Fiber services. Enhanced by redundant routes through Washington, D.C., this fully underground network ensures superior security and robust bandwidth capacity, making it an ideal solution for facilitating essential financial exchanges with reliability and efficiency.
Pittsburgh – Columbus
Columbus, Ohio, the next data center hub, has received a significant upgrade with the addition of a direct Dark Fiber connection to Pittsburgh. This high-capacity, 100% underground fiber route is designed to support AI development and seamless data center access, further strengthening Zayo’s vision for a future-ready network. This unique route will integrate with our Columbus-to-Chicago AI corridor, currently under development, further enhancing our AI-ready network. Customers can benefit from exceptional uptime and robust bandwidth availability, making this unique connection a game-changer for modern data needs.
Columbus – Ashburn
Zayo’s Columbus to Ashburn Wavelengths route is the only direct underground connection linking these two major data center hubs. With Columbus quickly emerging as a prime location for data center development, and Ashburn recognized as the data center capital of the world, this route offers unparalleled value. Designed for scalability and reliability, it provides customers with secure access to key growth markets, as well as Zayo’s expansive Dark Fiber network. This unique connection represents a critical infrastructure solution for businesses seeking high-capacity, future-proof fiber connectivity.
D.C. – Columbus – Atlanta
One of our latest unique Wavelength routes connects Columbus, D.C., and Atlanta in a Y shape. It enables 400G services on an ultra low latency route completely unique to Zayo. It connects our financial market routes into our southern rail route from Atlanta to Dallas, then out to the west coast. This new, resilient route is built with modern fiber. Plus, it’s the most direct route with the lowest latency available connecting these key markets.
Denver – Salt Lake City
Our highly secure, Zayo owned and operated Denver to Salt Lake Wavelengths route was built to be diverse from the existing I-80 route through Wyoming. This route runs along the I-70 corridor and is a key part of Zayo’s low latency route from coast to coast from the Bay Area to New York, all on Zayo-owned fiber. In addition, it’s 50 miles shorter than the heavily used I-80 route providing a lower latency direct route.
Reno – Las Vegas (NDOT/DEAN)
Zayo was awarded grant funding from the National Telecommunications Information Administration (NTIA) Middle Mile Grant Program to expand our fiber network to underserved and unserved communities around the country, including in rural Nevada via this route. This route, sponsored by the Nevada state treasury, leverages Zayo’s DEAN architecture and brings scalable fiber infrastructure to the I-80 and US-93 corridor in rural Nevada, supplying broadband access to underserved communities with 800+ new route miles.
Dallas – El Paso
A key component of Zayo’s end-to-end North American cross-border connectivity expansion, this new route will serve as a main telecommunications on-ramp for traffic from the United States into Mexico, providing both Wavelengths and Dark Fiber services. Built along a new diverse corridor from existing routes, this route will strengthen the U.S. fiber backbone, bolster network resilience, and increase connections with our neighbors. With support from the NTIA Middle Mile Grant Program, this route also serves as an important connection to underserved and unserved communities in the region.
Chicago – Toronto
This Wavelengths route is a vital connection linking financial markets in Toronto and Chicago, providing secure and diverse connectivity on the lowest-latency terrestrial fiber route between the two major economic centers for quick international market communication. This route’s diverse routing options make it ideal for facilitating fast, reliable cross-border data exchange between the U.S. and Canadian financial markets and stock exchanges, thanks to robust metro market connections in New York City, Montreal, and Winnipeg. Customers using the route between markets in Chicago and New York will often employ this route for increased network diversity.
Los Angeles – Phoenix
This fully underground Wavelengths route provides customers with low-latency connections to major Western markets and the highest levels of security and protection against outages. This route is popular for customers looking for diversity in the region, with few carriers offering direct, unique connections along the same corridor. Customers can also achieve triversity between these two markets thanks to Zayo’s additional routing options both north and south.
Las Vegas – Reno
This direct route provides essential connectivity between data centers in Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada. This route offers the lowest latency solution available in the corridor, with diverse connections not only from any other carrier, but also from Zayo’s NDOT Las Vegas to Reno route. This ensures customers benefit from greater route diversity and enhanced resilience, providing the most reliable, robust Dark Fiber connections available.
Chicago – Columbus
Tying Chicago to two major data center hot spots in Columbus and Ashburn, this fully underground route provides the lowest latency connections with the highest levels of resiliency. This route is a crucial connection for companies seeking tri- and quadversity between financial centers in New York and Chicago, and the developing midwestern data center market in Columbus.
Seattle – Vancouver
This unique, fully underground route offers Dark Fiber customers unique options for routing backhaul traffic from Vancouver, Canada back to the United States. Paired with our subsea connection between Vancouver and Seattle, this route offers exceptional route diversity options, increasing network resilience along this corridor.
Sacramento – Reno – Salt Lake – Denver
This marathon Dark Fiber route serves as a vital connection between west coast markets and cities in the Rocky Mountains. Spanning more than 1,200 miles and offering two diverse connections between Salt Lake and Denver for added resilience, this 100% underground route provides a stable, secure, high bandwidth connection between vital data centers in Salt Lake City, Denver, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Denver – Chicago
Zayo’s unique Dark Fiber route connecting Denver to Chicago is the most direct option allowing for the lowest latency and highest resilience possible. This highly popular route between the two midwestern economic centers receives continuous investment and overbuild focus, adding fiber capacity to ensure the network is ready before it is needed.
Wawaka – Columbus
Zayo’s Wawaka to Columbus route expands on our already stellar network diversity in the Midwest, offering customers in Chicago and New Jersey increased traffic routing options between the two financial hubs. This fully underground unique Dark Fiber route gives customers alternative routing options past Indianapolis as an extra layer of resilience without sacrificing network security.
San Diego – Dallas
A key part of Zayo’s coast-to-coast network, the San Diego to Dallas unique Dark Fiber route provides customers on both sides of the United States a vital, low latency, highly diverse route for quick and secure data transfer. This 100% underground route also offers customers unmatched security and resilience, allowing for peace of mind and network confidence.
St. Louis – Indianapolis
Zayo’s St. Louis to Indianapolis Dark Fiber route is the most direct offering on the market and is completely diverse from other options in the region, ensuring the highest levels of up time with the lowest latency. This fully underground route also serves as a diverse option for those connecting between the West Coast and Chicago, improving network resiliency.