Lightpath wins third Columbus network award, expanding underground fiber build to 304 route miles total
Third award adds new southwest segment toward Cincinnati
Lightpath has secured a third major network award tied to its Greater Columbus buildout, expanding the company’s underground fiber construction program in Central Ohio. The latest award adds 55 route miles of new, 100% underground, multi-conduit network running southwest of Columbus in the direction of Cincinnati, bringing the company’s total network under construction in the region to 304 route miles.
The project is positioned to support high-capacity connectivity needs associated with large-scale data center and AI workloads. The build is designed around dense fiber capacity, with construction rolling out in phases and portions expected to come online earlier than initially planned.
How the Columbus build scaled from 102 miles to 304 miles
Lightpath’s Columbus expansion has unfolded through a sequence of awards and announced builds over the past year:
April 1, 2025: Entry into the Columbus market with a 102-route-mile underground network intended to provide diverse connectivity between strategic data center areas south of downtown and the broader metro corridor. Service offerings described for the network included dark fiber, conduit, high-capacity wavelengths (up to 800 Gbps), Ethernet, and internet connectivity.
December 2, 2025: A subsequent project added approximately 150 route miles of high-density fiber, more than doubling the earlier announced footprint across the region.
January 20, 2026: A third award added 55 route miles, bringing the total under-construction build to 304 route miles and extending the footprint southwest toward Cincinnati.
Construction timeline: phased delivery through 2027
Lightpath has indicated that construction in the Columbus market is progressing in phases. Roughly 102 route miles—about one-third of the total announced build—are scheduled for completion in the first half of 2026, described as ahead of the original delivery timeline. The remaining mileage is expected to be delivered in the first half of 2027.
The company has framed the Columbus network as part of a broader U.S. strategy focused on dense, all-fiber infrastructure designed for scalable, long-term connectivity needs.
What the expansion signals for regional connectivity planning
With the added southwest segment, the overall project extends beyond a single metro ring and aligns with growing demand for data center-to-data center connectivity across multiple corridors. The focus on underground, multi-conduit construction suggests an emphasis on route diversity and capacity expansion, factors typically associated with resiliency and long-lived infrastructure planning for high-availability environments.
In Columbus, the network is being built in stages with first portions scheduled for completion in the first half of 2026 and the remaining mileage expected in the first half of 2027.
Lightpath has not publicly identified the specific customers tied to the latest award, but has described the demand driver as large compute platform users expanding AI infrastructure across multiple U.S. regions and prioritizing predictable performance and network scale.