IEIC Takes Aim at Regional Development of New Infrastructure Nexuses

July 5th, 2019 by · 2 Comments

While everyone (in the US) enjoys the long Independence Day weekend, here’s a quick look at an interesting item I missed from ITW week. A new organization aiming to stimulate the growth of new regional internet hubs around the world, the Internet Ecosystem Innovation Committee (IEIC). The idea is to replicate the multilateral cooperation between industry participants and local municipalities, academic institutions, and regional business interests.

The founding members hail from all corners of the infrastructure ecosystem: Google, QTS, Telxius, Hilton, Cigna, Bank of America, Freddie Mac, Telia Carrier, Ciena, Blade Group, CenturyLink, and InterGlobix. Examples of the rising infrastructure nexuses that they would like to replicate include Marseilles, Hillsboro, and of course Ashburn. A more recent project of many in that group of course is Richmond and Henrico County, which are looking to leverage the new cable landings in Virginia Beach to launch a regional internet infrastructure bloom.

The end goal is greater diversity in the infrastructure of the internet, which has lately had a tendency to cluster quite densely around a handful of nodes per continent. But there are many pieces required for such an ecosystem to be successful, from better training for the local workforce to buy-in from local governments & regulatory bodies to investment in the underlying transportation infrastructure. It may happen organically now and then, but the IEIC hopes to take the lessons we’ve learned and create a recipe for replication.

Internet luminary Vint Cerf headlines the founding members list as Honorary Chairman, while Telia’s Staffan Gojeryd, Telxius’s Rafael Arranz, Ciena’s Steve Alexander, QTS’s Clint Heiden and Jon Greaves, and CenturyLink’s Andrew Dugan are on it as well, while InterGlobix’s Vinay Nagpal is IEIC Secretary and Independent Facilitator. Along with executives from Hilton, Cigna, Blade Group, Freddie Mac, and Bank of America, it’s an interesting group.

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Categories: Datacenter · Fiber Networks · Telecom Equipment · Undersea cables

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