Thursday Bytes: Equinix, 1623 Farnam, Redzone, SEACOM

Four expansion projects in four very different geographies and infrastructure sectors:

Equinix is building a major new data center in the UK city of Manchester. The first phase of the data center giant’s fifth facility in Manchester will provide 3,600 square meters of colo space, with the eventual total reaching 6,480 square meters and 2,000 cabinets. The buildout will cost Equinix some £61, and will take place in the Agecroft Commerce Park in Salford.

1623Farnam is upgrading and refreshing the branding at the Omaha IX Peering Exchange. They bought Omaha IX, which operates out of its flagship data center, in the middle of 2020 and have seen an increase of 25% in active ports since. The exchange now offers 100G ports with plans for additional upgrades in Q1 of next year, as well as a new website, and is more strongly tied into 1623 Farnam’s overall ecosystem.

Up in the far northeastern state of Maine, Redzone has completed a 2-month fixed wireless pilot. In Rockland Maine they have put Tarana’s G1 platform to the test, confirming peak end-user data rates of 800Mbps in both line-of-sight and ‘harsh non-line-of-sight conditions from existing tower location across a 25 square mile coastal area. They will now shift gears toward a commercial deployment as an alternative to FTTH.

And there was an interesting bit of M&A over in the African marketplace this week. SEACOM has purchased the enterprise Nairobi metro fiber network of Hirani Telecom, which offers triple play services in Kenya. The deal gives SEACOM more terrestrial on-net reach in one of the key markets along the original subsea cable they started with. SEACOM had already been using these metro assets of Hirani in Nairobi, and Hirani retains the metro network assets that support its triple play business.

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Categories: Datacenter · Interconnection · Mergers and Acquisitions · Metro fiber · Wireless