tw telecom brings fiber connection to Sentinel's NC data center

tw telecom (Nasdaq: TWTC) is extending its fiber network to Sentinel Data Centers' NC-1 carrier neutral data center in Raleigh-Durham, N.C. Sentinel began building the 420,000 square foot facility late last year, and the first phase will be commissioned this month.

Bringing its fiber connection to Sentinel's NC-1 facility makes sense since the large business customers that reside in Sentinel's data centers are the same types of companies that tw telecom already serves over its own fiber network.

"In concert with our national network, tw telecom's North Carolina Regional Fiber Network enables customers to reach Sentinel's NC-1 facility easily and cost effectively from other North Carolina cities, such as Charlotte, Greensboro, Winston-Salem and Fayetteville, to support disparate data center applications and business continuity strategies," said John Rinehart, vice president and general manager for tw telecom in Raleigh, in a release.

The fiber extension will give Sentinel's existing customers a broader set of network connectivity options, particularly Ethernet and IP/VPN, for regional and national network connectivity to and through the facility.

Sentinel is just one of many agreements tw telecom has established with third-party data center providers. It has similar arrangements with Core NAP and Phoenix NAP to extend services to customers in central Texas and Phoenix, Ariz.

Mike Rouleau, senior vice president of business development and strategy at tw telecom, told FierceTelecom in a recent eBook that data center connectivity is a multi-layered opportunity that includes the corporate office, the enterprise data center, and the third-party data center.

And while tw telecom may have a fiber connection between the customer data center and their enterprise, the challenge comes in weighing the business case and the operational activities involved in installing a new fiber connection to a third-party data center.

"This is hard; this is heavy lifting," Rouleau said. "It's not simply a matter of having fiber into a location, you have to be able to manage the inventory, provision on the fly, count it and bill it for a customer."

For more:
- see the release

Download our eBook: Heralding the Data Center Renaissance

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