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The race for fiberspace Walk down the streets of your nearest central business district and just try not to notice the fluorescent paint markings on the sidewalks and streets. They're on almost every corner of South Florida's metropolitan areas. The markings often consist of arrows and the names of telecommunications companies, and they let construction workers know that beneath the street lies very expensive fiber-optic cable. They also are visual symbols of a national phenomenon - a mad frenzy by the nation's telecommunications companies to lay fiber-optic cable and create technology savvy business centers. And nowhere is the rush more apparent than in South Florida, an area virtually left behind in the early 1990s, when fiber-optic cable was being laid in major centers such as San Francisco and New York. Now playing catch-up in the fiber-optic race, South Florida has become a focal point for more than a dozen companies laying more than 9,000 miles of the communications strands. In all, hundreds of millions of dollars is being spent on laying fiber in South Florida. What's all the fuss about? Fiber optic cable is considered the fastest and cheapest way to send data and voice transmissions from one point to another. Companies can also pack an almost unlimited amount of information on one fiber strand. And as cities vie to attract Internet companies and other industries that rely heavily on communications - which these days is nearly every business - the amount of fiber-optic cable streaming through a city becomes increasingly vital. "South Florida is just starting to become an Internet community and building the infrastructure to support it," says Julio Ibarra, director of engineering and telecommunications at Florida International University. "Places like Washington, D.C., San Jose and Chicago are major technology centers that have the fiber and infrastructure already in place to support high-tech companies and institutions." While major players have certainly invested in building fiber-optic networks in South Florida, Ibarra says, it is not enough, making it difficult for the region to become a true technology hub. Adds Richard Paul-Hus, vice president of Fort Lauderdale-based Hypower Inc., a ditch digging and cable installation company: "I don't think we will catch up to the established technology-driven regions in the country. But I think we will be in a position to be one of the top areas for technology." One major factor that is bringing more fiber-optic networks to South Florida is the race to connect to Latin America. South Florida serves as the perfect landing point for undersea fiber-optic networks between North and South America being built by Telefonica S.A., Global Crossing Development Co. and 360 Networks Inc., says Jorge Escalona, president of 360 Networks Latin America, which recently located its headquarters in Miami. "A great deal of the [telecommunications traffic] from the region comes through South Florida," he says. "You have a major need [for fiber-optic networks] because companies rely on high speed to send information to and from Latin America." Much of that demand is being driven by the growing crop of Internet service providers. When major carriers began building fiber-optic networks some four to five years ago, it was too expensive to extend networks down to southern Florida, says Paul-Hus. But in the past two years, Miami has developed enough of a critical mass of technology-related companies that the carriers can justify the expense of extending their networks. Demand for the fiber also is coming from competitive local exchange carriers that need networks to carry data and voice transmissions. Most fiber users cannot afford to build their own networks, so they buy or lease fiber from fiber-optic network providers, which are the companies that own the fiber-optic cable. In the telecommunications industry, those providers are known as a carrier's carrier and include start-ups like FPL Fibernet and Epik Communications, and traditional telecommunications carriers like AT&T and Sprint. Some providers even lease or swap fiber from other providers to offer their services in untapped markets. For example, Atlanta-based Netrail, a broadband services provider, currently leases from a major carrier 800 miles of fiber from Atlanta to Miami and 300 miles of fiber from Tampa to Miami so it can sell its services to telecommunications companies in the South Florida market. Company spokeswoman Jill Frank said Netrail is in the early stage planning of its own nationwide network that will include 650-700 miles of fiber optic cable between Orlando and Miami. Because of the cable-laying flurry, South Florida - especially downtown Miami - now is getting its fair share of fiber, Ibarra says. Ibarra says the fiber-optic networks that do exist in South Florida are attracting another technology trend to the region - data centers and Web hosting facilities. Those facilities typically provide Internet and telecommunications companies with space to store servers, routers and other equipment used to get on to fiber-optic networks. In western Miami-Dade, Web hosting facilities and data centers are popping up like mushrooms. Exodus Communications, an Internet hosting company, recently announced it will house a 370,000-square-foot hosting facility at the Lightspeed Center at Beacon Tradeport being developed by the Swerdlow Group. UUNet, the telecommunications arm of telecommunications giant Worldcom, is building a 108,000-square-foot facility at an undisclosed location in Northwest Miami-Dade. Global Crossing, a major developer of undersea fiber-optic networks, is putting a 100,000-square-foot data center inside a proposed telecommunications hotel in the Park West neighborhood of Miami that is being developed by Terremark Worldwide. Sandra Gonzalez-Levy, spokeswoman for Terremark, says their building - dubbed the Technology Center of the Americas - will be located in one of the areas of South Florida with the highest concentration of fiber-optic networks. Terremark's building will also be home to the NAP of the Americas, a major Internet exchange that experts like Ibarra and Paul-Hus say will play a major role in enticing fiber optic network providers with little or no presence in South Florida, to extend their networks down the so-called InternetCoast. "All the major providers are already here," says Gonzalez-Levy. "The best thing going for Miami is that it is a termination point for the long-haul fiber-optic networks." Long haul is a reference to the fiber-optic networks that stretch across the United States and are typically owned by giants like AT&T, Sprint and Worldcom. Williams Communications of Texas, which was the original owner of Worldcom's long-haul network until 1995, re-entered the fiber-optics game two years ago, when a noncompete clause with Worldcom expired. South Florida has definitely been one of Williams' target markets, says Gil Broyles, Williams' spokesman. He says the explosion of the Internet and the evolution of technology convinced the company's executives to return to the fiber business. In Florida, Williams has laid some 1,500 miles of fiber-optic cable, running down the east and gulf coasts and terminating in Miami. Throughout South Florida, Broyles says, that company has POPs, or points of presence, which are locations where Internet service providers and other telecommunications companies can access fiber networks. Broyles says Williams is also building a 51,000-square-foot data center at 2115 NW 22nd St. in Miami. The rush to lay fiber also has created new competition in an industry long dominated by traditional telecommunications carriers. South Florida is either home or an integral component for these new players, which include utility c |