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Company history / New York City

A New York story.
Since 1995.

From our first Internet connection to the work beneath the streets. Follow the milestones that shaped Stealth.

From the archive / 2013Stealth crew installing fiber beneath Midtown Manhattan streets
Midtown Manhattan Fiber construction
The Stealth archive

Built over time.

Networks evolve. These moments trace our path through Internet access, interconnection, and fiber infrastructure.

Jump to fiber construction
  1. Chapter 01 / 1995–1999

    The first connections

    Entry 011995

    Founded in NYC

    Stealth Communications is founded in New York City, in the era of dial up Internet and Netscape. Its first connection to the Internet is a 1.5 Mbps T1 into MCI’s backbone.

  2. Entry 021996

    Commercial services

    Commercial service begins with 128 Kbps ISDN and fractional T1 connections ranging from 64 Kbps to a full 1.5 Mbps T1.

    Routers built in house

    Stealth builds its own routers using PCs and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). Its custom Layer 2 transmission technology runs at 1 Gbps in full duplex, before Gigabit Ethernet is standardized in 1998.

    IEEE Gigabit Ethernet history

  3. Entry 031997

    Financial networks

    Stealth brings native Ethernet connections to Island ECN across the NYC metro area using its custom router technology. The original company history records this as the first native Ethernet offering to Island ECN in the region.

  4. Entry 041998–1999

    Peering grows

    Rapid Internet traffic growth leads to more than a dozen private DS-3 peering connections, each running at 45 Mbps. Stealth also establishes public peering at NYIIX, the New York International Internet Exchange.

  5. Chapter 02 / 2000–2010

    Networks meet

    Entry 052000

    Buildings and IPv6

    Stealth prewires 50 Broad Street and 29 Broadway in Lower Manhattan, bringing Fast Ethernet Internet access into the two office buildings.

    Joining the IPv6 testbed

    Stealth joins 6bone, the experimental IPv6 network, and receives a pTLA address assignment for participation in the testbed.

    Work inside office buildings advances alongside Internet research: bringing Ethernet access to businesses while testing the next generation of Internet addressing.

    6bone background

  6. Entry 062001

    NY6IX launches

    Stealth launches the New York IPv6 Exchange (NY6IX), connecting more than 12 organizations. Participants include Sprint, France Telecom, the U.S. Department of Defense, Qwest and ESnet.

    Early IPv6 interconnection

    The original company history identifies NY6IX as the largest IPv6 exchange on the East Coast at the time.

    Production IPv6

    On February 1, the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) allocates Stealth production IPv6 address space. Stealth’s company history places it among the first ten IPv6 networks in North America to reach this stage, with an sTLA allocation.

    An Internet exchange gives participating networks a place to connect directly. NY6IX brings that model to IPv6, helping organizations exchange traffic as the protocol moves into operational use.

    IIJ IIJ press release Teleglobe Going Native (IPv6) KDDI ARIN IPv6 record

  7. Entry 072002

    Optical backbone

    Stealth upgrades the optical links between its core hubs using Transmode coarse wavelength division multiplexing (CWDM), with 16 channels carried over the fiber.

    The Sprint gigabit agreement

    Stealth secures gigabits of IP capacity from Sprint. The original company history records Stealth as Sprint’s largest IP customer in New York City at the time.

    Light Reading Laser Focus World

    Transmode CWDM system
    Transmode CWDM system
  8. Entry 082003

    Routing and voice

    Stealth selects and deploys Procket 8812 routers, adding support for high density 10 Gbps backbone connections.

    Converge Digest

    Voice Peering Fabric launches

    Stealth introduces the Voice Peering Fabric (VPF), described in its company history as the world’s first distributed Ethernet exchange dedicated to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). It enables direct calls between participating networks using ENUM directory lookups, without crossing the public switched telephone network (PSTN).

    Light Reading

    Procket 8812 router
    Procket 8812 router
  9. Entry 092004–2008

    Voice Peering Forum

    Stealth organizes and hosts multiple Voice Peering Forum events, bringing together companies developing and deploying VoIP technology.

    Event videos on YouTube

    Force10 TeraScale deployment

    Stealth deploys Force10 E-Series equipment in New York, Atlanta, Miami and Los Angeles, expanding the platforms supporting its voice and data interconnection services.

    Gary Kim hosting a panel at the 2008 Voice Peering Forum
    Gary Kim hosting a panel at the 2008 Voice Peering Forum
    Force10 E1200i platform
    Force10 E1200i platform
  10. Entry 102005

    Big Apple Peering Exchange

    The Big Apple Peering Exchange (Big APE) launches as a low cost, high performance IPv4 peering platform for Internet service providers and content providers in the NYC area.

    NY6IX joins Big APE

    The NY6IX service merges into Big APE, bringing the earlier IPv6 exchange into the broader peering platform.

  11. Entry 112009–2010

    Over 500 direct connections

    Stealth exchanges traffic directly with more than 500 other Internet networks, including major Internet service providers and content providers.

  12. Chapter 03 / 2013–2019

    Beneath the streets

    Entry 122013

    City fiber construction

    New York City grants Stealth information and telecommunications franchises to install fiber in the public right of way. Stealth’s own crews begin building a backbone from Midtown Manhattan toward the Financial District.

    ConnectNYC Fiber Challenge

    Stealth joins NYCEDC’s ConnectNYC Fiber Challenge. The program’s second round supports fiber construction and free fiber wiring for selected New York City businesses.

    Network engineering and street construction come together, giving Stealth a direct role in building the physical routes that carry its services.

    NYC franchise agreement (PDF) Construction retrospective

    Stealth crew installing fiber beneath Midtown Manhattan streets
    Stealth crew installing fiber beneath Midtown Manhattan streets
  13. Entry 132014

    325 Hudson Street

    A new core hub opens at 325 Hudson Street. Stealth brings in two cables containing 864 fibers each, one from the north and one from the south, and installs a 24 Tbps Internet core router.

    Stealth cage at 325 Hudson Street
    Stealth cage at 325 Hudson Street
  14. Entry 142015

    Brooklyn expansion

    Stealth joins the New York City Economic Development Corporation’s Connect IBZ initiative to bring fiber broadband to the Southwest Brooklyn Industrial Business Zone.

    More than 130 Manhattan buildings

    By this stage, Stealth’s fiber crews have connected just over 130 commercial buildings in Manhattan, alongside the expansion into Brooklyn.

    The project focuses on industrial businesses in an area underserved by broadband infrastructure, extending the company’s construction work beyond Manhattan.

    Project retrospective

  15. Entry 152016

    Brooklyn goes live

    Stealth’s underground Brooklyn fiber system enters service as part of Connect IBZ. Crews install more than 8,000 feet of new conduit, together with manholes in Southwest Brooklyn, and a 50 Tbps core router at Bush Terminal.

    The expansion creates a physical path into the neighborhood: street infrastructure, fiber cable and a network hub built as part of the Connect IBZ project.

    Fiber Broadband Association Technical.ly Observer NY Business Journal

    Underground conduit and access structure construction at Bush Terminal, Industry City
    Underground conduit and access structure construction at Bush Terminal, Industry City
    Stealth Communications · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Resized; metadata removed.
  16. Entry 162017–2018

    National speed recognition

    In November 2017, Telecompetitor reports that BroadbandNow places Stealth first for average download speed among the 40 U.S. carriers in its comparison. The reported average is 145.9 Mbps.

    A business Internet pick for New York

    The company’s 2017–2018 history also records HighSpeedExperts naming Stealth its best business Internet pick in New York City.

    Telecompetitor / 2017

  17. Entry 172019

    NYC buildout and Pop-Up Fiber

    Stealth launches Pop-Up Fiber for temporary engagements in New York City, using its own fiber network and field expertise to deliver gigabit connectivity for video, film and streaming productions seeking an alternative to satellite hookups.

    An expanded construction plan

    On May 14, Stealth announces plans to add 8,000 fiber miles of cable to its NYC network over the following year. Fiber miles measure the combined length of individual fiber strands, rather than miles of street route.

    2019 expansion announcement

    Stealth fiber crew working in the Times Square neighborhood
    Stealth fiber crew working in the Times Square neighborhood
  18. Chapter 04 / 2022–2024

    The next chapter

    Entry 182022

    Core upgrade and speed recognition

    On September 8, Nokia announces that Stealth has selected its 7750 Service Router and 7220 Interconnect Router platforms for a New York metro core upgrade.

    Nokia announcement

    Recognition for measured speed

    In August, The National Interest reports that Stealth leads BroadbandNow’s local and regional provider rankings. The report records a maximum measured speed of 7,529 Mbps, approximately 7.5 Gbps.

    The announced plan aims to carry more traffic, simplify network management and strengthen protection against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks using Deepfield Defender.

    The National Interest / 2022

  19. Entry 192024

    Recognition for our people

    Comparably names Stealth among its 2024 Best Company Culture winners in the small and midsize company category. The recognition is based on anonymous employee ratings of leadership, career growth, work environment and other aspects of workplace culture.

    Comparably / 2024 Stealth Profile at Comparably

Historical milestones drawn from Stealth’s published company history, public records and the original announcements linked above.

Stealth Fiber Crews / In the field

The work behind
the network.

A closer look at the crews, materials and street work that shape Stealth’s network.

Stealth Fiber Crews / Field archive06 photographs
Stealth crew guiding a circular underground access structure into an excavated opening. Stealth crew using a diamond blade street cutter on a city roadway at night, with Stealth traffic cones in the foreground. Coils of black cable across a rain-soaked Manhattan street at dusk. Large wooden fiber-optic cable reel beside a city street, with traffic light trails in the background at dusk. A patterned Stealth Communications manhole cover set into the roadway. Stealth crew positioning a rectangular underground access chamber at a street construction site.
Selected photographs from the Stealth Fiber Crews collection.Open a tile to see the full photograph
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