On 1/2/25 07:33, Alex Buie wrote:
Curious about strategy here - any continental mid-sized ISPs do similar with a small footprint in the main building but the majority of their footprint offsite?
We have done this before and as a Engineer the answer is: it depends. If you many many many racks at your "stubby datacenters" where you are getting good price for power, service, etc. then cost of dark fiber or wave service from an on-net carrier at your existing datacenter to a popular place like One Wilshire does make sense. However if you have only a few racks, then the cost might not make sense as you have to factor in: - dark fiber or wave service fee - cross connect fees at your "stubby datacenter" - cross connect fees at the premium datacenter (CoreSite, Digital Realty, Equinix, etc.) - peering/transit/IX fee you ultimately want to connect to - Any multiplexing equipment you need (CWDM, DWDM, etc.) if you want to split up/share the dark fiber connection - any cabinet space you might need Again, it all comes down to price. For the Los Angeles area about 6 months ago we looked at roughly ~30 miles of dark fiber service by the airport over to downtown (CoreSite at One Wilshire). Crown Castle (Wilcon), Zayo and Cogent were on-net at both facilities. Crown Castle and Zayo were the cheapest and offered dark fiber service for ~$1500/month. Cogent offered wave service for about double. Sadly, American Dark Fiber (local fiber company) was not on-net at our facility which would have been half the cost. We then had to factor in a small POP at CoreSite to host the multiplexing equipment, etc. Again, all comes down to price. Hope this helps -Adam -- Adam Brenner https://aeb.io/