Data Core - A New Twist

Collocation Vets Form New Venture to Provide Managed Metro Connectivity

From the people that brought you carrier-neutral collocation facilities comes a new venture aimed at providing managed exchange points where customers and service providers can hook up to multiple networks for access into and out of metropolitan areas.

ixpanse Inc. (www.ixpanse.com) was founded by the executives from the former CO Space Services LLC, a carrier neutral collocation provider that was acquired by InterNAP Network Services Corp. (www.internap.com) about a year ago. G. Gabriel Cole, the founder of CO Space, is now president and COO of ixpanse, and many of the company's vice presidents have also come from CO Space.

The goal of ixpanse is to provide a value-added alternative to telco hotels that offer network operators, service providers and enterprise users the ability to connect to a variety of networks in the metro area in an efficient manner.

"Now we're not doing carrier-neutral collocation. We're doing carrier-neutral networks," says Cole. "The whole city becomes our network."

ixpanse is developing what it calls Metropolitan Network Connection Centers (MNCCs), facilities serving as central network access points that are near existing telco hotels and carrier networks. In its MNCCs, ixpanse is creating a global network of independent optical network access and interconnection points in which it will manage all networks serving the communications hub, and provide the necessary infrastructure to enable connection of multiple networks to customers and each other. ixpanse also manages all aspects of network ordering, deployment and monitoring for its customers.

ixpanse will also provide technical services, such as equipment installation and network monitoring, as well as shared services such as data storage, server access and network aggregation. Among the other services on ixpanse's menu is the requisite power and environmentals needed to operate an interconnection facility, and professional services including market and network analyses and facility assessments for development of new network hubs.

ixpanse is currently in the process of developing its first two MNCCs, one in Boston and another in San Francisco, and is searching for an appropriate site in London. Cole says the company expects to build facilities in 27 markets--13 in the U.S. and 14 in Europe and Asia. ixpanse plans to add one city each quarter for the next two years, and then ramp up to two cities per quarter in the third year until all 27 markets have been addressed.

The company is partnering with Yale Properties USA, a real estate investment company that owns and manages many communications hubs in the United States. Yale is contributing some of its properties--274 Brannan Street in San Francisco and 230 Congress Street in Boston--to the ixpanse venture.

"Our real estate partner has been willing to contribute their assets, which give us cash flow and a balance sheet up front," says Cole, noting that the company is looking for other real estate companies with which it can partner to build out its full slate of MNCCs.

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