FiberLight to Acquire Metro Fiber Networks

WASHINGTON, April 16, 2025 — FiberLight on Wednesday reached a deal to acquire Metro Fiber Networks (MFN), gaining control of a critical 200-mile underground dark fiber route between Virginia Beach and Richmond – a move the company says positions it to meet surging AI infrastructure demand and accelerate its expansion across the Southeast.

The acquisition, expected to close by June, would give FiberLight one of the most direct, lowest-latency routes linking the largest U.S. subsea cable landing station – located in Virginia Beach, which handles roughly 70 percent of all transoceanic internet traffic – to Richmond, with future plans to extend that route to the major government and hyperscale data centers of Northern Virginia.

“As you look at Northern Virginia, the Ashburn area [also known as Data Center Alley] has run out of usable land, power, and of course, water,” CEO Bill Major told Broadband Breakfast.

“Now that we have an agreement to close on MFN, we can start building from Richmond up to Ashburn and the Culpeper area, where we've got a tremendous dense network through Northern Virginia into D.C.”

“I've got the team engineering the route now,” Major said. “Then we'll move to permitting and start constructing.”

“This [MFN] network was extremely well built — it’s all underground and includes multiple empty ducts,” Major said. “It’s not lit, it’s dark fiber, but that’s what makes it ideal for carriers, hyperscalers, and potentially even federal and defense agencies that need secure, direct access to the cable landing station.” Virginia Beach is also home to the largest defense installation outside the Pentagon.

FiberLight already operates more than 11,000 miles of fiber in Texas alone, and has a strong presence in the Atlanta metro area. “We’ve established a lit service between Atlanta and Charlotte,” Major said. “And now we can extend that to Virginia Beach.”

FiberLight’s long-haul strategy is backed by global infrastructure investment firm Morrison, together with co-shareholders Australian Retirement Trust and a managed client of UBS Asset Management.

Major described the MFN acquisition as the first of several planned moves. “My team of nine has done over 200 acquisitions in our careers,” he said. “We’re used to doing this, and I hope to start announcing more.”

“There’s just a huge tailwind right now in the AI space,” Major said. “We need to be in the right place at the right time… [and] MFN will be a critical piece to addressing the insatiable demand for fiber right now.”

The deal comes as supply chain concerns and potential tariff hikes threaten to delay telecom infrastructure investments. But Major said FiberLight is well-positioned to weather those disruptions.

“We've done a good job partnering with vendors that are manufacturing onshore, which should – knock on wood – prevent any supply chain issues,” Major said, pointing to Corning, which manufactures 90 percent of its fiber in North Carolina, and Fujitsu, which operates out of Texas.

“[Fujitsu] manufactures here in Texas, but they're dependent on parts, of course, that are offshore. So there is an impact [from tariffs, but] we have great suppliers and partners that are U.S.-manufactured.”

Major said the company was positioned to move forward aggressively.

Although FiberLight isn’t a last-mile provider, Major said the company’s infrastructure often lays the groundwork for others to expand access. “This could really help bridge the digital divide in that area,” he said, referring to the Virginia Beach-Richmond corridor.

“We’ve done that in all the markets we operate — where BEAD money, RDOF money, state grants are coming out. We already have the infrastructure in place. We can give fiber-to-the-home operators a leg up and a head start.”

In 2022, FiberLight was acquired by a consortium led by Morrison & Co., a global infrastructure investment firm founded in New Zealand, which marked Morrison's first investment in North American digital infrastructure. The partnership has facilitated expansions, including new routes into central Mexico and investments in like the 100-mile fiber corridor along State Highway 130 in Texas.