Infrastructure-based connectivity provider Lightpath has announced an agreement to acquire all of the assets of United Fiber and Data (UFD).

The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to close in the third quarter of 2024.

UFD owns and operates a diverse 323-route mile, high-fiber count network between New York City and Ashburn, Virginia, connecting the largest population center in the country with the largest data center and cloud ecosystem in the world.

The company also owns a 79-route mile metro network in New York City and New Jersey, including connectivity to over 350 enterprise and data center locations and a high-fiber count crossing of the Hudson River.

Its New York City-Ashburn network uses optical technologies from Ciena, and can support dark fiber, Ethernet, and wavelengths up to 800 Gbps.

According to Lightpath, the network is "geographically diverse from typical long-haul routes along the I-95 corridor," and will expand its network of more than 20,000 route miles, connecting more than 15,000 service locations, including more than 140 data centers and seven cable landing stations.

"The addition of United Fiber & Data is a natural extension of Lightpath's expansive Greater New York City Metropolitan fiber assets, increasing our ability to serve high-capacity customer needs into the Ashburn data center ecosystem and further enhancing our Manhattan metro coverage where we will serve nearly 1,500 enterprise and data center destinations, a 5x increase over the past three years," said Chris Morley, CEO of Lightpath.

"This represents a continuation of Lightpath's strategic investment thesis of creating critical fiber infrastructure in attractive and high-growth markets for the benefit of our Enterprise, Hyperscale, and Wholesale customers."