Windstream (Nasdaq: WIN) Hosted Solutions, the telco's data center subsidiary, will add a 72,000 square foot data center in Charlotte, N.C., its fourth in the city. Expected to be open late this year, this is the seventh data center it has built in North Carolina.
Upon completion, the new data center will include multiple 10,000 square foot data center suites that will be delivered in a phased approach.
In addition to offering rack space and power, the new data center will be able to deliver the telco's suite of cloud computing, dedicated hardware, data storage, and managed services.
Jeff Gardner, president and CEO, said during the 41st Annual J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in May that they have worked to use the Hosted Solutions business as a platform to sell more managed and cloud services to its growing base of medium and large business customers.
"The data center business is growing at close to 20 percent so it's an important of our offering to our customers," he said. "What we have really gotten better at over the past year is to get that very integrated into our service offering so that we did not behave like two separate companies--a data center company and a network company."
Gardner added that "we have a lot of referral activity between our network sales force and our Hosted Solutions sales force, which is really driving up the opportunity."
Although still a relatively new player in the data center and cloud services space, Windstream has already racked up a growing list of high profile customers in various vertical segments, including national retail Belk; TITAN GS, a global consulting, technology services and outsourcing firm, and Bojangles, a nationwide restaurant chain.
The data center it has planned for Charlotte is part of a broader build out data center strategy. In addition to Charlotte and two other data centers in Nashville and Durham, N.C., the telco plans to open a number of other data centers this year.
For more:
- see the release
Download our new eBook: Heralding the Data Center Renaissance
Related articles:
Windstream's fiber cut in Kentucky interrupts consumer, business customers
Windstream wins seat on GSA's GRITS-II contract
Windstream hires Nicklas away from XO Communications
Windstream's Gardner: Our wholesale team needs to sell more than wireless backhaul
Windstream's higher consumer, business results help to offset legacy service declines