How AT&T Express Waves Targets Data Centre Fibre Networking

AT&T Business has announced the introduction of AT&T Express Waves, a fixed-capacity wavelength service for moving traffic between data centres, clouds and edge sites.

The Express Waves have a bandwidth of 100G or 400G per wavelength over AT&T’s long-haul fibre network, with stated turn-up in 24 hours on designated metro pairs.

The design centres on private optical paths, redundancy and deterministic latency for inter-facility links that carry training data, inference traffic and replication.

How AT&T Express Waves serves data centres

Express Waves runs on Dense Wavelength-Division Multiplexing across AT&T infrastructure.

AT&T also reports a trial transporting 1.6 terabits per second on a single wavelength, framed as four times faster than its current top speed. The commercial tiers remain at 100G and 400G, aligning with common router optics and data centre interconnect patterns. 

For buyers planning scheduled transfers or east–west application flows, fixed wavelengths can remove variability from internet-based routing and simplify capacity planning.

Julie Kutchinski, Vice President of Wireline Products at AT&T Business, says: “AT&T Express Waves is about giving customers exactly what they want – capacity, certainty and speed – right when their business needs it. 

“With turn-up times in as little as 24 hours on speeds of up to 400G that’s delivered over a private, redundant fibre architecture, we provide ultra-low latency and reliability at enterprise scale so teams can push AI, cloud and edge workloads with confidence and keep momentum nationwide.”

AT&T Wavelength Edgeless metro configurations

Alongside the wavelength launch, AT&T has expanded its AT&T Wavelength Edgeless design first announced in April 2024.

The company says local metro configurations now support onboarding for enterprises and service providers, with stated reach to 460,000 buildings and 2.3m businesses. 

The company positions 400G edgeless metro connections as a way to shorten the path from enterprise sites and colocation campuses into the optical backbone, which can lower latency for regional workloads and support predictable handoffs into cloud on-ramps.

For operators stitching together multi-region clusters, the Edgeless handoff aims to reduce intermediate bottlenecks and deliver consistent interfaces into Express Waves.

This pairing targets both ends of inter-data-centre paths: metro ingress near users or devices and long-haul wavelengths for bulk movement between facilities and cloud regions.

Equinix Fabric and AT&T 400G wavelength

AT&T is working with data centre operators and global hyperscalers alike to help transform their operations by using Express Waves.

Bryn Norton, Vice President of Global Technical Sales at Equinix, says. “We’re proud to be strengthening our global connectivity strategy by upgrading our Equinix Fabric backbone to 400G Wavelength services – made possible through close collaboration with AT&T and other key partners. 

“AT&T’s unique route offerings play a pivotal role in this initiative, delivering direct, low-latency access that enhances reach, reliability and resilience for our customers.

“This upgrade reflects our ongoing commitment to delivering high-performance infrastructure that supports our evolving customer needs from AI inferencing to cloud services.”

For exchange fabrics that back cloud access and software-defined interconnects, fixed 400G trunks can streamline scaling between metros and across national corridors.

Standardised wavelengths also fit router faceplates and optics commonly deployed in carrier-neutral facilities, avoiding bespoke builds when demand jumps around major events or model training cycles.

AT&T 1.6Tbps single-wavelength trial

AT&T cites a 1.6Tbps single-carrier wavelength trial on live traffic as a signal of where optical capacity is heading.

While Express Waves sell at 100G and 400G today, higher per-wavelength rates can influence future interconnect design by reducing the number of waves required for the same throughput. 

For data centre operators, fewer wavelengths can simplify operations, lower line-card counts and condense inter-site trunks, subject to optics availability and system roadmaps.

Express Waves pairs fixed bandwidth with a 24-hour activation objective on selected routes.

For data centre teams handling dataset seeding, periodic replication or bursty east–west transfers, that provisioning window can help align transport with change controls and maintenance cycles.

The private optical model avoids the public internet path, supporting designs that place traffic on dedicated fibre with route diversity.