Telecom Exchange Roundup: First, Tinet, PTGi, Allied, Global Capacity, Hibernia, Cross River

Today I had a great time at JS&A’s first Telecom Exchange event, where I met many people and talked myself hoarse.  There were also several interesting announcements made at the event that are worth a quick look:

First Communications took its regional fiber network deeper into the Canadian market by adding a presence at 151 Front Street and 100 Wellington in Toronto as well as 3500 Steeles Street in Markham just to the north.  That improves the company’s low latency proposition between New York and Toronto, a product they unveiled last year.  First Communications doesn’t make a lot of noise yet, but they have some interesting assets and they seem to be increasingly active on many fronts.

International IP and Ethernet backbone tinet further extended its connectivity to Asia with an interconnection agreement with Hong Kong’s PCCW.  Tinet unveiled its EtherCloud approach to the Ethernet Exchange movement back in April, and one of its big features is their long and growing list of international partners with hard to reach endpoints.  This deal with PCCW gives them greater reach in the Far East, a region they have been targeting.

Telx won yet another convert to its Ethernet Exchange, as PTGi (Primus) has now signed up.  PTGi has been a Telx customer for some time, so this represents a furthering of that existing relationship.  Telx’s history in the interconnection business has been helping it gain momentum in the Ethernet Exchange segment in recent months, with a variety of network operators signing on.

Upstart longhaul dark fiber builder Allied Fiber became the latest in a steady recent string of fiber operators to announce a buildout into the new Piscataway datacenter of Dupont Fabros Technology (NYSE:DFT, news, filings).  Allied Fiber doesn’t build many laterals themselves, but in this case the Piscataway facility lies right next to their route, and they can take advantage of DFT’s 3-Lateral Underground Duct Bank as well.  When complete, tenants will be able to lease continuous dark fiber from Allied Fiber from NJ all the way to Chicago or Ashburn.

Global Capacity, which is now owned by Pivotal Group, announced that its One Marketplace Access Exchange platform has been selected by MegaPath.  Today’s MegaPath derives from the former Covad, MegaPath, and SpeakEasy assets, and has been putting money into an EoC product line.  But one of the hardest things to scale in this sort of business is generating quotes and orders spanning the plethora of last mile providers and options available – especially when integrating three companies – hence the unified platform from  Global Capacity.

Hibernia Atlantic added another customer at its Global Financial Network.  BATS Global Markets will be leveraging the company’s low latency, high reliability Hibernia Secure product for both its US and European trading hubs.  Additionally, the company reiterated its aggressive timetable for deploying its Project Express transatlantic cable, for which they currently have submarines out surveying the route along the ocean floor.

And last but newest, a new NY/NJ area metro dark fiber operator called Cross River Fiber made an appearance.  The company is led by Vincenzo Clemente, who was earlier over at 4Connections which was bought by Optimum Lightpath a while back.  Apparently he really likes the NY/NJ area when it comes to fiber.  Cross River Fiber will be focusing, like many these days, on metro routes that are highly optimized for low latency requirements.  They will start building in the next couple quarters – I look forward to seeing how it goes and hopefully getting a fiber map for them into my collection.

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Categories: Datacenter · Ethernet · Low Latency · Metro fiber · Undersea cables