Cloud 2.0 in action: Lumen unveils the future of next-gen cloud connectivity with AWS

Lumen and AWS co-develop a last mile interconnect service that accelerates secure, scalable cloud access.

Enterprises are scaling AI/ML workloads and next-gen applications at record speed, and cloud connectivity plays a critical role in that acceleration. But the journey is rarely straightforward. The last-mile connection from branch offices and data centers has been a major source of delay, complexity and operational friction. Current connectivity models force customers to navigate a maze of partner selection, manual configuration, inconsistent last-mile performance and lengthy activation timelines. Every capacity change or business continuity requirement creates a new project, and potential downtime during maintenance leaves SLAs vulnerable. The result is a cascade of business impacts: extended time-to-value, deployment delays driven by configuration errors, risk of outages and operational burden. These challenges slow down innovation, delay cloud adoption and limit agility for teams that need to move fast.

Today, we are pleased to announce a gated preview for AWS Interconnect Last Mile designed to alleviate these challenges through a fully managed, jointly developed solution from Lumen and AWS that is designed to eliminate last-mile bottlenecks and simplify connectivity to AWS.

This Lumen-AWS news is part of the Cloud 2.0 strategy from Lumen to transform the network foundation for modern enterprises. Cloud 2.0 delivers high bandwidth, low latency and flexible data center connections to help businesses deploy and scale advanced workloads like AI and machine learning quickly and reliably. Programmable, on-demand network fabrics put control directly in customers’ hands to solve last-mile challenges, reduce activation time and minimize operational risks. With a vast, high-capacity network and close collaboration with partners like AWS, Lumen brings secure, high-speed cloud connections online in minutes. The launch of AWS Interconnect Last Mile demonstrates this strategy in action—showing how Lumen can connect enterprises to AWS rapidly and dependably, so they can innovate and adapt without barriers.

Designed for a simpler, faster and more resilient path to AWS

AWS Interconnect Last Mile will redefine how organizations extend their networks to the cloud by making connectivity fast, simple and reliable. Co-developed by Lumen and AWS, this fully managed service will allow customers to connect their branch locations, data centers or remote sites directly to AWS with just a few clicks—all through AWS or Lumen Connect Console.

The service provides resilient connectivity that removes complexity and accelerates time-to-value. Customers can activate private, high-speed connections in minutes with scalable bandwidth from 1G to 100G. In addition, customers benefit from a 99.99% Availability SLA up to the Direct Connect port, along with real-time performance visibility across connections. AWS Interconnect Last Mile delivers the cloud connectivity experience modern enterprises have been waiting for—frictionless, scalable and built for the speed of innovation.

The mechanics of simplifying the Last Mile Connectivity

When a customer requests a connection, the service automatically provisions four connections between four router-pairs across two distinct Direct Connect locations, based on the customers’ bandwidth. During planned maintenance, the service always maintains at least three operational links, enabling no downtime. The service also provides customers with end-to-end monitoring and visibility, including availability, health, latency and packet loss on the connections.

The gated preview of the service will initially be available in U.S. East, with global reach to any AWS region.

A new standard for cloud connectivity

With ~340,000 route miles, direct fiber access to ~163,000+ buildings and 2,200+ third-party data centers, and a global backbone capacity of +350 Tbps, the 400G enabled Lumen Network now spans more than 100,000 route miles and achieves latency less than five milliseconds at the edge, covering up to 97% of U.S. business demand.

AWS Interconnect Last Mile represents a major milestone in the AWS + Lumen relationship—combining AWS’s cloud innovation with the extensive Lumen network footprint to redefine how businesses connect to the cloud.

Explore AWS Interconnect Last Mile with Lumen and join the gated preview.

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