The story of Relined Fiber Network

Relined Fiber Network is the largest independent lease company for unused fibre-optic capacity in public and private networks, both domestic and international.

Your reliable supplier in the area of high-quality connectivity

The emergence of the digital revolution has changed our world drastically. These days, we are all interconnected – via our computers, tablets, smart phones and the internet. We can no longer do without it.

At Relined, we think it’s important that the digital world is accessible to everyone and that it remain so. In order to achieve this, a solid and reliable fibre-optic infrastructure is essential. A network with national coverage and easily accessible connections abroad.

The first fiber-optic networks in the Netherlands were installed in the 1990s by public parties that needed reliable, rapid and secure data connections for a specific purpose. Parties such as rail manager ProRail for the management of signals and track switches, and electricity company TenneT for monitoring the national electricity grid.

These first networks were not only of good high quality, but a ‘future-proof’ capacity was also built as it was already known at the time that the demand would only increase. Once those networks had been installed, the question arose: why don’t we make that unused capacity available to the market so that other companies can use it?

A sustainable idea, which also contributes to the growth of the digital economy. But for the companies that had originally done the installations, accessibility of these fiber-optic capacity was not their core business.

The founding of Relined

In 2003, these challenges resulted in the establishment of Relined. Our full focus was on inventorying unused fibre-optic capacity, at first in the Netherlands, and then making that available to the market. The various networks were linked to each other at strategic points. Also, the network was expanded with a purchase of a metro network in Amsterdam. This provided access to a large internet nexus and to the various data centres there.

We then concluded partnerships with local and regional networks to deploy the unused fibre-optic capacity there more broadly as well. And in 2017, we entered into a partnership with British Telecom that expanded our network and the number of connected data centres considerably.

Network expansion abroad

Because of the high demand for connectivity to, but also in, Germany, we expanded our infrastructure to Germany in 2017. The important Internet hub of Frankfurt was added to our network. And later also the nationwide network of GasLINE, a telecom organization with several local energy companies as shareholders. In 2019, the first connection was made to Denmark via the COBRA Fibre Optic Cable and, two years later a network with national coverage in Denmark was added to this via the Danish gas and electricity supplier Energinet.

Expansion of connectivity solutions

For more than 20 years, Relined has been leasing dark fiber capacity from various public and private networks in the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark. In 2023, Relined is acquiring NDIX. With the strategic acquisition of NDIX is a response to increasingly strong demand from the market to complement our dark fibre services with exposed services. This move will allow us to further expand our services with – alongside the familiar dark fibre – more connectivity options for businesses and data centres, suitable for internet, data connections and private networks.

Who is Relined?

And that’s how we grew to be the Relined of today. An independent specialist providing high quality fibre-optic network as the basis for connectivity solutions that fit you. A partner who understands your business, whom you can trust, who contributes expertise in your search for a future-proof solution and who always looks beyond its current fiber optic network.

Because our mission – making unused fibre-optic capacity available – is more relevant than ever. In our densely populated and building-congested Netherlands, regional and national governments are increasingly critical of initiatives that require digging. The installation of new and sometimes even redundant fibre-optic networks is viewed as a hindrance to digitisation and as an undesirable form of capital destruction since that same connection can often be achieved just as well by linking unused capacity in existing networks with each other.

Hence our slogan : Connecting the dots