Zayo and Starlink Forge Alliance for Resilient Enterprise Networks

DENVER, CO – February 25, 2026 – In a significant move to redefine enterprise network capabilities, communications infrastructure provider Zayo has announced a partnership with Starlink, enabling it to offer managed low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite connectivity across North America. The collaboration positions Zayo as one of the few licensed resellers of Starlink for enterprise, blending its vast terrestrial fiber network with the agile, low-latency reach of satellite technology. This hybrid approach aims to deliver a new level of network resilience and availability for businesses, government agencies, and schools, particularly those operating beyond the reach of traditional infrastructure.

By integrating Starlink's satellite constellation into its portfolio, Zayo is directly addressing a critical market demand for uninterrupted connectivity. The new offering, Managed Starlink with Zayo, promises to bridge connectivity gaps, provide robust disaster recovery options, and support an increasingly mobile workforce.

A New Standard for Network Resilience

The modern enterprise is built on data, and any network disruption can lead to significant financial and operational losses. Recognizing this vulnerability, businesses are increasingly prioritizing network resilience, with a recent industry study finding that over 90% of IT leaders view it as a core strategic imperative. The Zayo-Starlink partnership is a direct response to this need, creating a powerful hybrid network model that ensures business continuity.

The core of the solution lies in path diversity. By combining Zayo’s high-performance fiber with Starlink's LEO satellite connectivity, organizations can create a truly resilient architecture. This can be configured as an active-active system, where data flows simultaneously through both fiber and satellite links, or as an automatic failover path. In the event of a fiber cut from construction or a service outage from severe weather, the satellite link can instantly take over, maintaining critical operations like video conferencing, cloud access, and VoIP calls.

“By pairing Starlink’s low-latency LEO satellite connectivity with Zayo’s fiber network solutions, we’re setting a new standard for what network resilience looks like,” said Ed Loveless, Head of Product for Managed Services at Zayo, in the company's announcement. “Organizations can extend connectivity farther, stay online through disruptions, and do it all without the burden of added operational complexity.”

This integration of fundamentally different network technologies—one ground-based, one space-based—provides a level of redundancy that is difficult to achieve with terrestrial-only solutions, which often share common physical rights-of-way and are susceptible to the same regional disruptions.

Bridging the Last Mile and Beyond

For decades, businesses in rural, remote, or geographically challenging locations have faced a digital divide, contending with slow, unreliable internet or the prohibitive cost and long timelines of new fiber construction. The Zayo and Starlink offering aims to decisively close this gap. With advertised download speeds of 100-280 Mbps and low latency of 20-40 milliseconds—a performance metric comparable to terrestrial broadband—the service brings enterprise-grade connectivity to previously underserved markets.

Key use cases highlight the transformative potential:

• Remote Operations: Industries like energy, agriculture, and mining can deploy reliable internet to field sites in days, not months, enabling real-time data collection, remote monitoring, and improved worker safety.

• Enhanced Mobility: Logistics and transportation companies can maintain constant connectivity for their fleets across the country, improving asset tracking, communication, and route management, even in cellular dead zones.

• Disaster Recovery: For government agencies and first responders, the ability to rapidly deploy a high-speed internet connection in a disaster area, independent of damaged local infrastructure, is a game-changing capability for coordinating relief efforts.

The service leverages Starlink's Priority Data plans, which are specifically designed for the consistent performance and low latency that business applications demand. This makes it a viable primary or secondary connection for a wide range of enterprise workloads that were previously impossible over traditional high-latency geostationary satellites.

The Managed Service Advantage: Simplifying Complexity

While the technology is powerful, its integration into complex enterprise IT environments presents a potential hurdle. Zayo is addressing this by offering Starlink not as a standalone piece of hardware, but as a fully managed service. This approach is designed to reduce the operational burden on internal IT teams and streamline network management.

Through this model, Zayo provides end-to-end support, from initial site surveys and installation to ongoing monitoring and management. Crucially, the Managed Starlink service can be bundled with Zayo's existing suite of managed network solutions, including SD-WAN, Firewall-as-a-Service, and IP-VPN. This allows an enterprise to seamlessly integrate the satellite link into its broader network fabric under a single-vendor relationship, with a unified management interface and a single bill.

For an IT manager, this means the Starlink connection isn't an isolated, ad-hoc solution but an integrated component of their network strategy. An SD-WAN controller, for example, can be configured to intelligently route traffic over the satellite link based on application priority, network performance, or failover policies, all managed through Zayo. This simplification is key to unlocking the technology's benefits without adding layers of administrative complexity.

Navigating the Realities of LEO Connectivity

Despite its significant advantages, deploying enterprise-grade LEO satellite connectivity comes with practical and financial considerations. The total cost of ownership can be substantial. The initial hardware for Starlink's business-tier service carries a premium price tag, often around $2,500 per terminal. Monthly service fees are also considerably higher than typical residential or small business broadband.

Furthermore, while Starlink's Priority Data plans offer robust performance, they are not unlimited. Businesses must carefully monitor their data consumption, as exceeding monthly allotments can trigger significant speed throttling or require the purchase of additional data blocks at a per-gigabyte rate, which can quickly escalate costs for data-intensive operations. For businesses in areas with access to competitive fiber, a terrestrial connection will almost always offer a more cost-effective solution with higher performance and true unlimited data.

Technical limitations also persist. The Starlink terminal requires a clear, unobstructed view of the sky, which can be a challenge in dense urban canyons or heavily forested areas, necessitating careful site planning. And while its latency of 20-40ms is revolutionary for satellite, it is still higher than a direct fiber connection, which can deliver latency in the single-digit milliseconds. This distinction may be critical for a small subset of ultra-latency-sensitive applications, such as high-frequency trading.

Ultimately, the partnership between Zayo and Starlink represents a pivotal evolution in enterprise networking. It signals a shift toward more dynamic, resilient, and geographically unconstrained network architectures, acknowledging that in a connected world, the combination of terrestrial and non-terrestrial solutions provides the most robust path forward.