Open House

Carrier-Neutral Facilities Offer Collocation and More

In the early days, they could rent space in the central office (CO) of a major network provider; rent office space in a carrier hotel; or canvas the central business district for office space where they could build out their own facilities.

Things have changed. Whether it be the need for just a rack's worth of space, or several thousand square feet, service providers have an expanding list of independently owned facilities where they can quickly collocate with a variety of backbone providers.

"We cut their capital expenditures, reduce ongoing operating costs, drive down switching costs and we're here, ready to go, so we decrease time to market," says Gabriel Cole, president and chief operating officer of CO Space Services LLC, Boston.

There are about a dozen carrier-neutral collocation sites being offered around the country by a handful of companies.

Switch & Data Facilities Co., Teaneck, N.J., is probably one of the longest-standing carrier-neutral collocation providers. Currently, the company has sites in Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia, with plans to complete several more by the end of the year. By mid-2000, Switch & Data will be in nearly 50 markets.

"There is a proliferation of carriers and fiber out there," says James Lavin, Switch & Data's president and CEO. "Not only can they competitively bid alternative carriers, they can sell to other people in our space."

Switch & Data's collocation facilities average about 20,000 square feet and are complete with telco-grade infrastructure. Lavin says rack prices vary from $500 to $700 a month, depending on the city.

Inflow Inc., Denver, refers to itself more as an information technology (IT) outsource staff than a collocation provider. "We bring the customers' equipment we work on into a single facility," says Art Zeile, Inflow's CEO.

In addition to collocation space, Inflow can provide multihomed Internet, firewall management, equipment monitoring and data backup.

Inflow's bundled offering costs, on average, $3,000 to $5,000 a month.

Because of its additional services, Inflow plans to attract more e-commerce companies than traditional CLECs and ISPs.

CO Space has been in business since 1997. At that time, its founders were doing telecom consulting and noticed that smaller companies were having difficulty finding space.

CO Space has between four and 12 backbone carriers coming into their sites. In addition, CO Space offers managed installation service, network design and deployment and operational services, including maintenance, backup and upgrades. Pricing is done a la carte. Square footage costs range from $15 to $45 a month, while monthly rack space costs between $300 to $1,200 per rack.

CO Space has opened facilities in Boston; Houston; and Waltham, Mass. Sites in Chicago and Jersey City, N.J., are about to open. By mid-2000, CO Space expects to be in 15 cities, including two internationally. "Our implementation in the United States is working well," says Cole.

One of the newest entrants in carrier-neutral collocation is WCI LightPoint, Hillsboro, Ore., a subsidiary of the WCI Group.

LightPoint is just completing its initial facility builds in Portland, Ore., and Seattle. "Both are already sold out, so we're picking up more space," says Stuart Vincent, LightPoint's marketing director.

New facilities would average 12,000 to 25,000 square feet, with Internet hot spots, such as California, reaching 200,000 square feet.

In addition to offering managed firewalls, LightPoint has plans to make room in the facilities for office space. Its customers could use the space for their network technicians or as temporary sales offices as they first enter a market.

Colo.com Inc., Brisbane, Calif., and ExtraNet, New York, also are in the carrier-neutral collocation business. However, they were not willing to discuss their business plans.

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