Investors are willing to bet on fiber

Allied Fiber indicates it has raised the funds needed to build the first leg of a nationwide dark fiber and colocation network that will eventually be almost 12,000 miles in length. Allied called the current financing market "challenging," but was able to raise the money it needed to get started. The companies is planning colocation facilities (POPs) about every sixty miles along the entire length of the network, or in most towns and cities along the fiber routes.

Colocation facilities, along with fiber, are rapidly becoming the drivers of economic development. Communities that don't have fiber routes connecting to major networks like this one won't have be competitive from an economic development perspective because the local prices for broadband services will be higher than in communities that do have access to these networks.