360networks
| Public company | |
| Industry | Telecommunications |
| Fate | Buyout, 2011 |
| Predecessor |
Worldwide Fiber, Inc. Pacific Fiber Link |
| Successor | Zayo Group |
| Founded | Seattle, Washington (1998) |
| Founder | Jerry Tharp, David Lede, Clifford Lede |
| Website | www |
360networks was a wholesale telecommunications carrier based in Seattle, Washington. The 360networks group's assets and operations were sold to the Zayo Group on December 1, 2011, and no longer exists as an operating telecommunications company.
360networks, though not widely known due to its concentration in the wholesale market only, was an original pioneer of the fiber optic telecommunications industry. 360networks was originally known as Pacific Fiber Link, L.L.C. and was incorporated on February 5, 1998 and officially commenced business operations on May 31, 1998, but originated as the telecommunications division of Ledcor Industries of Canada, known as Ledcor Communications, Inc.
At the time, Ledcor Communications, Inc., was the 12-year-old division, then subsidiary of Ledcor Industries, now Ledcor Group of Companies, which was a 55-year-old, privately owned, industrial and infrastructure development and construction company. Run by the Lede brothers, David and Clifford Lede, Ledcor consummated its first telecommunications project in the early 1980s, with Bell Canada, managing the company's fiber optic network migration.
As the fiber optic telecommunications industry boomed, one of the greatest impediments to rapid growth for the telecoms was the acquisition of the rights of way within which to lay the fiber optic cables. The Ledes came up with a solution to this problem and negotiated a deal with the Canadian National Railway to install the cable in the railroad's rights of way alongside the tracks.
360networks (then known as Pacific Fiber Link, and subsequently Worldwide Fiber) and Ledcor made significant contributions to the linear construction industry by inventing and patenting the Railplow, that is mounted on a flatbed railcar and used to rapidly excavate a trench alongside railroad tracks, install conduits used for housing fiber optic cables, then backfilling the trench and completing the construction and installation process within a very short span of time. This new technology enabled 360networks to rapidly lay out a North American fiber optic network throughout Canada and the United States along and within numerous railroad rights of way. The patent for the railplow was transferred to a subsidiary of the two companies and 360networks received a royalty-free, exclusive license for the use of the railplow, giving it a significant advantage over some of its competitors that also utilized rail corridors.
Initially, Pacific Fiber Link focused on building a fiber optic route from Seattle to Sacramento, but in 1999 changed its name to World Wide Fiber and its focus toward a global network. Not long thereafter, with much anticipation amongst company employees, the company again changed its name to various nuances of 360 and 360networks, to better describe its 360-degree focus on a global network. Greg Maffei, the former Chief Financial Officer of Microsoft, was brought on board to direct the company's new global focus and soon thereafter went public in an initial public offering in the Spring of 2000.
...
Wikipedia