Birch Communications today announced that it has added another 80,000 new connected buildings to its metro fiber network.

That brings the company’s reach to more than 400,000 buildings across its 22 state footprint.

BirchLink fiber offers up to 1 Gbps symmetrical service.

Birch’s IP network now covers 44 markets and is comprised of 31,000 route miles of fiber and 600 POPs.

Vincent M. Oddo, President and CEO of Birch, said expanding his company’s metro fiber network will be the primary focus in 2016.

Birch’s metro fiber expansion comes after the company in August announced wider availability of its BirchNet Broadband product, now reaching one million customers.