Allied Fiber's massive build-out of dark-fiber infrastructure ÔÇô at first phase linking three major US metropolitan areas ÔÇô has been well publicized. But in addition to putting fiber into the ground, the company has also been building a community of vendors that gives customers a one-stop-shop for all their connectivity needs.

On Tuesday, Allied announced the addition of two more companies to its Dark Fiber community. The community, as Allied president and chief operating officer Jason Cohen put it, provides "everything you need to build the entire network."

The new additions are network services provider FiberLight and network equipment vendor Force10.

These are only two examples of the types of companies that are part of Dark Fiber. Cohen said members include equipment vendors, microwave optical wireless providers, integrators, equipment-testing firms, installation companies, providers of NOC services and data center providers, among others.

Data center providers include both retail and wholesale providers, some of whom have ongoing data center construction along Phase I of Allied's new network routes that connect metro areas surrounding New York City, Chicago and Ashburn, Virginia.

DuPont Fabros's recently completed facility in Piscataway, New Jersey, for example, is one of the data centers using the newly installed dark fiber, Cohen said. All-in-all, "We're aware of several million sq ft of total data center space that's being built" along the new routes, he estimated.

"Right now, we have five container data center providers [in] the Dark Fiber community and five [traditional] data center providers."

So far, a deal has been finalized with one carrier to use the infrastructure. This carrier is XO. "However, we're finalizing details with several other carriers and those carriers will be added to the site over the next several weeks," Cohen added.