EXA Infrastructure extends high-capacity London-to-Balkans fibre route

London-registered network operator EXA Infrastructure has today launched two new high-capacity terrestrial European fibre network routes – running between Milan and Zurich, extending the Frankfurt-Zurich-Milan-Genoa corridor, and between Paris and Vienna, extending the London-Balkans corridor.

Both of the new routes are intended to expand EXA’s existing owned fibre optic network to meet increasing AI, cloud, and content capacity demands, while also extending their low-loss G.652.D infrastructure footprint across Europe – offering the first G.652.D single-operated cable across this Alps corridor. Dark fibre, spectrum and wavelength services are available on both routes.

The Two New Routes

➤ The Milan-Zurich (335km) cable is the final section of EXA’s Frankfurt-Zurich-Milan-Genoa corridor (circa 1,050km). It is the first carrier-grade, low-loss G.652.D single operated cable across this Alps corridor. It delivers high-capacity, reliable connectivity between the Frankfurt and Milan data centre hubs and the Genoa subsea ecosystem, significantly improving throughput on the route. The design is scalable, with hundreds of fibres and modular in-line amplifier (ILA) sites that allow capacity to scale as demand grows.

➤ Paris-Vienna (circa 1,600km) is an essential part of a longer corridor connecting London with the Balkans and Turkey, and onwards to the Middle East. It also enables new Paris-Frankfurt and Vienna-Frankfurt corridors on a platform engineered for long-term growth and supports transatlantic traffic from Western Europe into Frankfurt.

“AI and cloud traffic has outgrown the idea that diversity means a backup path,” said Steve Roberts, Head of Strategic Investments and Product Management at EXA Infrastructure. “Customers want a choice of routes they can design around resilience, latency and capacity requirements … Both are built to meet the demand our customers are planning for and extend our low-loss G.652.D footprint across Europe.”

The announcement follows the launch of EXA Infrastructure’s Bilbao-Barcelona route and the unveiling of EXA Meridian, the company’s ninth transatlantic cable system that runs at up to 500Tbps – running between New Jersey (USA) and Brean (UK), which will be ready for service in 2029.