- Telcos shouldn’t count on an AI miracle app to solve their problems, said FiberLight CEO Bill Major
- FiberLight is already seeing AI-driven orders roll in for wave services
- The operator is also just beginning its fiber M&A foray
Telcos are now just scratching the surface of AI and how to best use it to improve their network. Yet operators shouldn’t get ahead of themselves thinking the technology is a miracle worker for their problems, FiberLight CEO Bill Major told Fierce.
Sure, AI can be used to proactively monitor the network and help telcos move quicker to resolve disruptions. But we have to keep in mind telecom is “one of the most imperfect industries you can work in,” he said.
In FiberLight’s case, Major said if he can use AI to reduce day-to-day operating expenses and the boots on the ground needed to assess any network damages, he’ll “definitely do so.”
“But I don’t think there’s a miracle application out there right now – specific to AI – that is anything that solves our challenges,” he said. “There’s too many things that occur.”
For instance, Major doubts there will ever be an AI that can prevent a backhoe from cutting fiber conduit. Operators and enterprises alike are dabbling in AI to see if it meets their needs (and gets that sweet ROI). Network-wide AI adoption, though, is its own beast – there’s always the chance of a hiccup in the system.
“You could get really distracted assuming that a particular application you’re going to run in your network is going to work,” he said. “It’s just like anything. You add any new software and technology and you get a bad software update, you can take down your entire lit customer base.”
We may be in the midst of AI hype, but that’s no guarantee operators will be successful in their efforts to implement it, as Gartner analyst Susan Welsh de Grimaldo told Fierce earlier this year. However, she noted operators are the ones who will bear the costs of supporting growing traffic for AI applications.
AI and enterprise fiber - the perfect match
Regardless of where telcos are at with AI implementation, Major believes enterprise fiber providers are well-positioned to seize the opportunity.
He said FiberLight in March received 64 orders for 400G wavelength “specific to AI,” with another 32 in the works for April. The company also noticed an uptick in orders with “large strand counts,” echoing trends long-haul fiber players Windstream and Zayo have pointed out.
400G is all the rage among cloud providers and hyperscalers, and Major noted FiberLight’s customers are interested in 800G waves as well. But that tech isn’t quite ready for deployment.
“It works really well in the labs right now, but we’ve got to get it to execution out on networks,” he said. Logix meanwhile already disclosed plans to roll out 800G services as it aims to support rising demand for AI inference applications.
FiberLight's M&A maneuvers
The fiber market is rife with consolidation – FiberLight is no different. The company just agreed to acquire Metro Fiber Networks (MFN), a provider serving carriers and public institutions in Virginia.
The acquisition made sense for a couple of reasons, Major said. One, FiberLight already has assets in Virginia and “as everybody knows, there’s no longer the land, the energy and of course, the water, to build anymore.”
Second, Meta in February announced its intent to construct a 31,000-mile subsea cable system – dubbed Project Waterworth – “which happens to land in Virginia Beach.” The market currently supports about 70% of trans-Atlantic communications traffic, Major noted.
“When you look at the MFN asset, it’s a well-constructed underground conduit and fiber system with additional duct to populate as demand continues to increase,” he said.
Rest assured, this marks only the beginning of FiberLight’s M&A foray. Major said he’s already looking at three other fiber operators that could be the right fit to expand FiberLight’s 20,000-mile network.
“We’re definitely going to become a platform for rolling up fiber companies,” he concluded.