The company has just signed a deal to lease the right-of-way along Amtrak's rail lines to install a 375-mile fiber-optic installation between New York City and the nation's capital. When that's done, estimated to be by sometime in the spring, GPU Telcom will make a right turn and wire up Amtrak's Keystone line between Philadelphia and Harrisburg, PA. That part of the project is due to be finished later this year, and after that a Harrisburg-to-Pittsburgh installation is in the works.

"The agreement with Amtrak gives us the chance to carry out our strategic plan of becoming one of the top telecom infrastructure providers in the Eastern US," according to GPU president David C. Brauer. "It will allow us to complete a larger plan that will use other rights-of-way to extend our fiber optics westward, beyond Amtrak-owned railroads," he adds, referring specifically to the Harrisburg-to-Pittsburgh project.

For Amtrak, "we're very happy to support this installation," according to the company's vice president of real estate development, Sally Bellett. "It's consistent with the expansion of our own high-speed rail service."

For New Jersey, the installation will serve all markets between the tier one markets, which include New York City and Newark, and farther south, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington. Within the Garden State, the markets being wired up include Trenton, New Brunswick, Sayreville and Jersey City.

"In fact," says Brauer, "this is the first aerial construction allowed by Amtrak." The fiber cable will be strung using existing Amtrak poles and standards, and "no new poles will be erected."

GPU Telcom's parent, GPU Inc., provides utility-related services to some 4.6 million customers through GPU Energy in the US and subsidiaries in England and Argentina. The company's independent power project business operates projects in five countries.