Newsroom

NJFX’s CEO Gil Santaliz to Speak at Metro Connect 2018

January 16, 2018

WALL, NJ – January 16, 2018 – NJFX, the first and only colocation campus to sit at a cable landing station in the U.S and offer Tier 3, carrier-neutral data center capabilities, announces its CEO, Gil Santaliz will speak on a panel at Metro Connect 2018.

Metro Connect will be held January 29 – 31, 2018 in Miami, Florida and features panels and strategic discussions including the industry’s most influential businesses, and the who’s who of the metro market. Santaliz’ panel entitled, ‘Where Subsea Meets Metro: Bridging Land and Sea,’ will focus on the changing dynamics of subsea cable landings and the affect on data traffic patterns, new business models, and considerations for submarine cable owners in relation to terrestrial connectivity when building new routes.

In addition, Santaliz will also share publically with executives of North American carriers how the NJFX carrier-neutral cable landing station campus will support the recently announced Aqua Comms investment of the HAVFRUE subsea cable connecting the United States (New Jersey) with Northern Europe. HAVFRUE is the first new undersea cable traversing the North Atlantic to connect mainland Northern Europe to the US in nearly two decades. Network services will be delivered to and from NJFX’s high reliability, carrier-neutral interconnection point in Wall, New Jersey.

“I look forward to the discussion at Metro Connect as the industry recognizes that global communications are changing at a very fast pace,” comments Gil Santaliz, CEO for NJFX. “The role of cable landing stations, where subsea cables meet terrestrial routes, is ever important. NJFX’s unequaled Tier 3 colocation center is a place where we invite North American metro providers to meet subsea cable systems and present their unique routes across North America and beyond. Our campus is extremely reliable, secure and an optimal location as it serves as the physical first and last stop in the U.S.”

NJFX’s Marketplace offers partners and clients a viable, secure way to connect to subsea networks across Europe, North America, South America, Asia and Africa. That connectivity is achieved via secure Network to Network Interfaces (NNI) with major transatlantic cables, the NJFX Market PoP (Point of Presence) and a rich carrier ecosystem, all of which combined now boast interconnection to over one million route miles, both subsea and terrestrial, and more than one million square feet of global data center space across over 180 countries.

###

About NJFX:

NJFX is a Tier 3 Carrier Neutral Cable Landing Station campus. Our colocation ecosystem has expanded to over 35 network operators offering flexibility, reliability, and security. Our Wall, NJ location provides direct access to multiple subsea cable systems giving our carriers diverse connectivity solutions and offers direct interconnection without recurring cross-connect fees.

Aqua Comms Continues Investment in Subsea Cables and Announces North Atlantic Bridge

Newsroom / NJFX

Aqua Comms Continues Investment in Subsea Cables and Announces North Atlantic Bridge

January 15, 2018

DUBLIN – Aqua Comms DAC (“Aqua Comms”), the operator of Ireland’s first dedicated subsea fibre-optic network interconnecting New York, Dublin and London, announces today its plans for continued investment in submarine cable infrastructure having joined the HAVFRUE consortium which will own and operate a new subsea cable system connecting New Jersey, U.S.A., to Ireland, and Denmark, with connectivity options to Norway.

The HAVFRUE subsea cable is the first new undersea cable traversing the North Atlantic to connect mainland Northern Europe to the U.S. in nearly two decades. Aqua Comms is the appointed system operator and landing party in the U.S., Ireland, and Denmark. TE SubCom has been selected as supplier for the system on which route survey operations have begun. The projected Ready-for-Service (RFS) date for the HAVFRUE subsea cable is Q4 2019.

Aqua Comms will market and sell capacity services and raw spectrum on its portion of the HAVFRUE cable system under the brand name America Europe Connect-2 (AEC-2) as complementary to its existing transatlantic cable, America Europe Connect-1 (AEC-1), running between New York and Killala in County Mayo, Ireland. Aqua Comms is also concluding a new cable route to Denmark through the UK, developing CeltixConnect-2, which connects Dublin to Manchester, as well as the North Sea Connect cable that will link Stellium’s data centre in Newcastle, England, to Esbjerg, Denmark.

Combining these new subsea cable developments, the build of the HAVFRUE / AEC-2 cable system, together with existing systems owned and operated by Aqua Comms, will create a resilient, ring-based infrastructure between the East Coast of the U.S., Ireland, and Northern Europe, connecting the hubs of the pan-Atlantic hyperscale data centre industry in North America, Ireland, and Scandinavia.

“Invest in Denmark is proud to welcome Aqua Comms and the other consortium companies into the country with this fantastic addition to our internet infrastructure,” comments Steen Hommel, Director, Invest in Denmark. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs couldn’t be happier about this investment. Landing a brand new, top-of-the-line fibre cable on the west coast of Jutland will further cement Denmark’s connectivity to North America.”

The HAVFRUE / AEC-2 infrastructure network services will be delivered to and from modern, high-reliability, carrier-neutral interconnection points at NJFX, in Wall, New Jersey, and 1025Connect in Long Island, New York, with a resilient network connection in between, offering a Manhattan bypass route increasing diversity and resiliency in the region. In Europe, the services will be offered from all landing stations and carrier-neutral, metro area Points of Presence (PoPs) in Dublin, London, Amsterdam, and Esbjerg, where the system will more than double fibre connectivity to Denmark, increasing the diversity and reliability of the Internet to the region.

“Aqua Comms is delighted to be investing as a part of the consortium for the HAVFRUE cable system connecting the U.S., Ireland, and Denmark,” states Nigel Bayliff, Chief Executive Officer, Aqua Comms. “The demand for hyperscale capacity and connectivity linking North America with Northern Europe cannot be overestimated, and the combination of AEC-1 / AEC-2 subsea cable systems, facilitated by the construction of HAVFRUE will deliver reliability and resilience at an auspicious time, especially in view of the meteoric rise of the digital economy taking place in Scandinavia.”

The Aqua Comms team is attending PTC’18, taking place January 21-24, in Honolulu, Hawaii, Metro Connect, January 29-31, in Miami, Florida, and Submarine Networks Europe, February 20-21, in London. Aqua Comms invites companies to meet with its representatives at these events so that it can assist organizations with their long-term connectivity needs across the Atlantic Ocean.

To learn more about Aqua Comms, visit www.aquacomms.com.

###

About Aqua Comms DAC
Aqua Comms DAC is an Irish Carriers’ Carrier specialising in building and operating submarine cable systems and supplying fibre pairs, spectrum and capacity networking solutions to the global media, content and carrier markets. It is the owner/operator of America Europe Connect-1 (AEC-1) and CeltixConnect-1 and continues to build on its vision of efficient submarine infrastructure ownership with membership of the HAVFRUE consortium and development of CeltixConnect-2 and North Sea Connect, bridging the Northern Atlantic between North America and Northern Europe. To learn more about Aqua Comms and its portfolio of subsea cable systems visit www.aquacomms.com

About TE SubCom
TE SubCom (SubCom), a TE Connectivity Ltd. company, is an industry pioneer in undersea communications technology and marine services, and a leading global supplier for today’s undersea communications requirements. As a vertically integrated supplier, SubCom designs, manufactures, deploys, and maintains the industry’s most reliable fiber optic cable systems. Its solutions include long-haul and regional systems, repeaterless networks, capacity upgrades, offshore oil and gas, and scientific research applications. SubCom brings end-to-end network knowledge and global experience to support on-time delivery and the needs of customers worldwide. To date, the company has deployed enough subsea communication cable to circle the Earth 15 times at the equator. For more information, visit
www.SubCom.com.

Media Contacts:
iMiller Public Relations for Aqua Comms DAC
Tel: +1 866 307 2510
[email protected]

Courtney McDaniel
TE SubCom
+1 732 578 7356
[email protected]

About NJFX:

NJFX CEO: “The Revolution Has Started!”

Newsroom / NJFX

NJFX CEO: “The Revolution Has Started!”

See the original article at SubCableWorld

December 11, 2017

Editor’s Note: NJFX exploded onto the submarine cable scene a little more than a year ago when it opened the first and still the only colocation campus to sit at a cable landing station in the U.S and offer Tier 3, carrier neutral data center capabilities. In recent months, the company has made a number of major announcements that continue to change the entire ecosystem of submarine cables, colocation and data centers in the New York City area.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with the CEO of NJFX, Gil Santaliz, about the company’s recent announcements: a new submarine cable system connecting NJFX’s colocation campus in Wall, New Jersey, with Long Island, and a new, direct way for carriers to reach the United States via the TGN-1/2 and Seabras-1 cable systems.

SCW:

Tell us something about the recent announcements concerning NJFX.

Santaliz:

The first news that came out recently was that Crosslake Fibre announced that they are running the first wet cable between New Jersey and Long Island. More specifically, that’s between the NJFX colocation campus in Wall, New Jersey, to the 1025Connect facility in Westbury, Long Island, a network-neutral Meet-Me Room for network interconnection and colocation. The 1025Connect facility is home to five subsea cable systems that regenerate there after they land in various parts of Long Island.

Shortly after that, NJFX announced that we now offer connections to strategic subsea cables TGN-1 & 2 and Seabras-1 via secure Network to Network Interfaces (NNI) at NJFX’s New Jersey campus. The NNIs contribute to guarantee increased performance, reliability and route diversity. The breakout capabilities allow carriers, service providers, content companies and enterprises high capacity, while eliminating traditional points of failure when providing US-Europe, US-Brazil, US-Asia connectivity. TGN-1 & 2 cables are submarine cable systems connecting Highbridge, UK, to Wall, New Jersey. Seabras-1 is a 10,500-km fiber optic cable that connects Sao Paulo, Brazil, to the United States. It offers connectivity to financial markets and other Latin America enterprises and bypasses the Atlantic hurricane zone.

These announcements are about adding to the architecture of how global networks really need to work. You have traffic coming in from Europe and Brazil and NJFX is connecting the cable landing stations with Crosslake Fibre’s assets. We’re seeing an incredible investment by US carriers building more capacity, more cable landing stations, offering all the important services to financials and other large customers — more options than they’ve ever seen before. This is because networks are no longer nice to have. They have to work all the time. You need to have diversity. You need to be able to stay operational if one subsea cable goes down or if one US carrier has a problem. There can’t be a hiccup. You have plenty of diversity across the ocean and we have options to bypass Manhattan. Manhattan is no longer a single point of failure in the United States.

SCW:

You’re talking about changing the way we do things. What impact has the Internet had on international services?

Santaliz:

It wasn’t that long ago that the Internet was just email. Now it’s live broadcast. Now it’s applications. Now it’s companies tapping into other entities around the globe to perform services that were previously done next door. It’s about looking for optionality whether it is going to Uruguay or Argentina or having a call center in Panama or tapping into resources in France or Frankfurt or having computing available in Ireland. In order for this global ecosystem to work we have to get to places. We must have a robust architecture. The days of monopolies that restrict how you can invest in architecture are gone. We really believe in net neutrality. NJFX is all about not competing with its customers but finding ways to help them create new architecture and not slow them down or restrict them or put rules on them.

I expect to be in a driverless car in the next five to ten years, making my life a lot easier as I get older. The last thing I want to hear is that my car won’t work because they lost some application that was being supported out of France or Frankfurt and there is no connectivity and the cars aren’t working. Or my Internet of Things is not working. We need to modernize our infrastructure to support how important it is that these things continue to work.

SCW:

There is more to this than just NJFX’s facility. You work with some key players in the fiber marketplace.

Santaliz:

We’ve had some great calls recently with Tata. Tata is a minority partner in NJFX and they support what we are doing. Together we can provide what customers want with a wide variety of options.

You need to have options to work with the best of providers, options like the Crosslake system being put in. That’s what makes sense. If they want to make the investment and work the niche market, allow them to do it. Embrace the change.

Being a customer of NJFX gives you the benefit of working with all of our backhaul providers – Zayo, Windstream, Comcast, Lightower Fiber Networks, Cross River and others – figure out who has the best solution for what the customer needs, put it together and present it as a solution that makes sense and all of a sudden it’s much better than “here’s the best that I have on my assets only.” If I have a carrier-neutral partner next door, we’re pulling in all those individual entities to create the best solution.

We’ve been at this for two years working with our community and everyone’s bought into the concept of bypassing New York City. Picking a place where subsea networks exist, collaborating together, and finding ways to connect. Find out what your customer is trying to accomplish and then support it. We’ve got a great community that’s only going to grow from here.

On the subsea side, we have connections to TGN-1, TGN-2 and Seabras-1 that we have several members on. Telecom Italia Sparkle owns half of Seabras-1 and they come into our facility. They’re presenting their services using Seabras-1 all throughout Latin America, as well as now having an option on Crosslake Fibre to jump across to Long Island and have their capacity connect to subsea cables there that provide ongoing connectivity to Europe and the Middle East. We also have Aqua Comms that comes into NJFX with Epsilon as their retail arm for partnership. Epsilon resells to enterprise customers, while Aqua Comms focuses on being a carriers’ carrier only. And they have an incredible system, AEConnect, going from the US out to Ireland and from there to London and Marseilles. So we have access to four subsea cable systems in our building, but the number of players is a multiple of that because each cable has to start with several main operators and then goes out to hundreds of customers.

Telecom Italia has made a decision to drop capacity into NJFX where it can now compete openly with low-latency applications. We have a monopole that we are putting up on the building because we happen to sit in New Jersey and we have all of the financial exchanges that trade globally. Telecom Italia is now positioned to work with our US backhaul providers to offer low-latency options down to Brazil and the rest of Latin America. We are happy and proud to be part of that as we are a carrier-neutral spot. Telecom Italia will still maintain space in the Tata cable landing station, but they are now deploying their interconnections in our facility.

The revolution has started! Everyone has bought into the concept that NYC is something that you don’t need to go through. It’s nice to visit but you don’t have to have US and all that international traffic pass through two buildings in Lower Manhattan. We sit in the New York City metro area that has a population of 65 million people and is very important to the United States. We can best serve that huge, dense population by adding diversity to the network. You don’t have to take all of your important assets and drop them in the middle of those 65 million people. Our thought in architecture is stop, take a deep breath, service that marketplace from various key points, triangulate it so that if one or two PoPs are impacted you’re not going to lose services to 65 million people, much less the trading that sits behind that. So it’s all about network architecture.

SCW:

What does 2018 have in store for NJFX?

Santaliz:

By the middle of 2018, I expect that we will be leasing out blocks and lots for data centers, new cable landing stations, business continuity sites – things that are assets to subsea networks. I want to give Ashburn a run for its money. This is a way that we can provide some diversity to Ashburn because we are going to have all of the connectivity they have plus more. We’re going to have space now for caching applications that serve the region, as well as the rest of the US, and offering diversity. In terms of Ashburn, we’re not going to compete with them on electricity and data center space – they have an incredible infrastructure in Ashburn. What we will do is offer diversity. We can say, “If Ashburn has a problem, we don’t have a problem.” Our campus is the answer to diversity for Ashburn. We have four subsea systems coming to our facility, all directly bypassing New York, and the future looks bright so stay tuned!

###

About NJFX:

Changing the Cable Landing Station Equation

Newsroom / NJFX

Changing the Cable Landing Station Equation

See the original article at Telecom Review

November 8, 2017

Wall Township, NJ – NJFX sits at a cable landing station in the U.S and offers Tier 3, carrier neutral data center capabilities, announces a new, direct way for carriers to reach the United States via the TGN-A and Seabras-1 cable systems. NJFX customers can reach these strategic subsea cables via secure Network to Network Interfaces (NNI) at NJFX’s New Jersey colocation campus. The NNIs contribute to guarantee increased performance, reliability and route diversity.

Telecom Review recently visited with the CEO of NJFX, Gil Santaliz, in order to give our readers a good overview of the connectivity options available through New Jersey.

The breakout capabilities at NJFX allows carriers, service providers, content companies and enterprises high capacity, while eliminating traditional points of failure when providing US-Europe, US-Brazil, US-Asia connectivity. TGN-1 & 2 cables are submarine cable systems connecting Highbridge UK to Wall, New Jersey. U.S. Seabras-1 is a 10,500-km fiber optic cable that connects Sao Paulo, Brazil to the U.S. It offers connectivity to financial markets and other Latin America enterprises and bypasses the Atlantic hurricane zone.

“Our new breakout capability allows carriers to use these subsea systems to reach the U.S. and bypass traditional routes that have multiple hops,” states Gil Santaliz, NJFX Founder and Chief Executive Officer. “This is crucial not only to reduce latency, but also in terms of increasing reliability and disaster recovery options. You only have to look to recent hurricanes to see that for communications hubs, one disruption in the chain could mean disruption in financial transactions, communications and connectivity to South America.”

Telecom Italia Sparkle Connectivity

TI Sparkle, the International Services arm of Telecom Italia Group, has a long-term investment of over USD 300 million for three fiber pairs out of the total six pairs composing Seabras-1. Seabras-1 is the only submarine cable system directly connecting Sao Paulo, Brazil, to New York, USA with an initial design capacity of 72 Terabytes.

Built with some of the best technologies available today and designed to reduce latency and increase reliability with respect to all other existing systems in the region, Seabras-1 will support the fast-growing demand of capacity originating in South America, especially Brazil, along the South to North America route, one of the most relevant IP traffic streams globally which records yearly growth rates of over 35%* and contributes over 30%* of the global market value.

In addition to the three express fiber pairs connecting Wall, New Jersey, US, to Praia Grande, Brazil, TI Sparkle’s investment includes a Branch Unit in Fortaleza, Brazil and a protected backhaul between New York and Miami to connect Seabras-1 to existing proprietary infrastructure, thus ensuring full network resiliency with top service quality.

“Customers at NJFX with the most stringent latency and diversification requirements, and who need higher reliability, can now enjoy direct advanced connectivity solutions to Brazil and beyond through Sparkle’s Seabras-1 capabilities,” says Federico Porri, CTO at Sparkle Americas. “As we are constantly working to provide more value and secure diversity options for our customers, we are happy to partner with NJFX, a company that provides a very reliable and flexible environment with great backhaul partners.”

Backhaul

NJFX offers backhaul options to strategic locations across the United States through carriers including Comcast, Cross River Fiber, Epsilon, Lightower Fiber Networks, Sparkle, Telia Carrier, Windstream, and Zayo – all with no recurring interconnection fee, for direct connectivity to over 50,000 buildings.

NJFX customers can use the subsea cables via secure Network to Network Interfaces (NNI) at NJFX’s New Jersey colocation campus. In addition, the two new subsea cables also allow carriers, service providers, content companies and enterprises high capacity, while eliminating traditional points of failure when providing US to Europe, US to Brazil and US to Asia connectivity.

Gil Santaliz, NJFX founder and chief executive officer, said: “Our new breakout capability allows carriers to use these subsea systems to reach the U.S. and bypass traditional routes that have multiple hops. This is crucial not only to reduce latency, but also in terms of increasing reliability and disaster recovery options. You only have to look to recent hurricanes to see that for communications hubs, one disruption in the chain could mean disruption in financial transactions, communications and connectivity to South America.”

The TGN cables are submarine cable systems connecting Highbridge UK to Wall, New Jersey. Seabras-1 is a 10,500-km fiber optic cable that connects Sao Paulo, Brazil to the US. It offers connectivity to financial markets and other Latin America enterprises and bypasses the Atlantic hurricane zone.

Submarine Fiber New York to New Jersey

Crosslake Fibre recently announced its plans to build a new submarine fiber-optic cable from Wall, New Jersey to Long Island, New York.

The cable system will directly connect Wall, NJ and Long Island with a 95km high fiber count unrepeatered submarine cable. The system will provide a physically diverse, lower latency route between cable landing stations in Long Island and New Jersey. “The need for a Manhattan bypass route is growing more critical with increased network congestion and weather-related threats in the region,” states Mike Cunningham, Chief Executive Officer of Crosslake Fibre.

The cable system’s endpoints will be located at NJFX in Wall, New Jersey, and 1025Connect in Westbury, Long Island. “We selected these endpoints as they are increasingly important hubs for transoceanic connectivity and provide a variety of network connectivity options for customers,” adds Cunningham. “As additional transoceanic cables carrying much of the world’s Internet traffic land in the region, and growth on existing cables continues, new domestic connectivity onward from the Cable Landing Stations is important.”

“The NJFX Cable Landing Campus is capitalizing on its location as a meet-me point for international connectivity,” states Gil Santaliz, Chief Executive Officer of NJFX. “The Crosslake Fibre subsea cable further adds to that ecosystem and brings a unique connectivity option for international and US carriers located here.”

“1025Connect is Long Island’s premier network-neutral Meet-Me Room for interconnection and colocation, known for its ability to provide direct access to multiple subsea cables East of New York City,” states Dan Lunde, Managing Director of 1025Connect. “Introducing the new Crosslake Fibre system adds another strategic option on the ‘Continental Edge’ and strengthens our position as the easternmost peering point in the metro area providing a truly diverse, subsea Manhattan Bypass route for customers.”

The Wall to Long Island project continues Crosslake’s model of developing niche submarine cable systems. “Our Lake Ontario build is progressing at full speed and has really validated our approach to developing smaller systems,” comments Cunningham. Crosslake Fibre will own and manage the system as an independent operator, giving the company flexibility to provide innovative commercial solutions to customers. The company will offer dark fiber and managed services to enterprise and carrier customers and has a targeted ready-for-service (RFS) date of June 2019 for the Wall to Long Island project.

2018 Growth

Gil tells us that NJFX is looking forward to a 48-acre expansion. This will be contiguous to the current facility and will allow for the construction of multiple data centers to take advantage of the international and domestic connectivity they have available at NJFX.

###

About NJFX:

NJFX new connection routes via Sparkle’s Seabras-1

Newsroom / NJFX

NJFX new connection routes via Sparkle’s Seabras-1

NJFX, also known as the New Jersey Fiber Exchange, has announced a new way for carriers to reach the United States via the TGN-A and Seabras-1 cable systems.

See the Original Article by Natalie Bannerman HERE

October 25, 2017

NJFX customers can use these strategic subsea cables via secure Network to Network Interfaces (NNI) at NJFX’s New Jersey colocation campus. In addition, the two new subsea cables also allow carriers, service providers, content companies and enterprises high capacity, while eliminating traditional points of failure when providing US to Europe, US to Brazil and US to Asia connectivity.

Gil Santaliz, NJFX founder and chief executive officer, said: “Our new breakout capability allows carriers to use these subsea systems to reach the U.S. and bypass traditional routes that have multiple hops. This is crucial not only to reduce latency, but also in terms of increasing reliability and disaster recovery options. You only have to look to recent hurricanes to see that for communications hubs, one disruption in the chain could mean disruption in financial transactions, communications and connectivity to South America.”

The TGN cables are submarine cable systems connecting Highbridge UK to Wall, New Jersey. Seabras-1 is a 10,500-km fiber optic cable that connects Sao Paulo, Brazil to the US. It offers connectivity to financial markets and other Latin America enterprises and bypasses the Atlantic hurricane zone.

Federico Porri, CTO at Sparkle Americas, added: “Customers at NJFX with the most stringent latency and diversification requirements, and who need higher reliability, can now enjoy direct advanced connectivity solutions to Brazil and beyond through Sparkle’s Seabras-1 capabilities. As we are constantly working to provide more value and secure diversity options for our customers, we are happy to partner with NJFX, a company that provides a very reliable and flexible environment with great backhaul partners.”

###

About NJFX:

NJFX Offers Global Carriers New, Diverse Ways to Connect to the U.S. via Multiple Subsea Cable Systems

Newsroom / NJFX

NJFX Offers Global Carriers New, Diverse Ways to Connect to the U.S. via Multiple Subsea Cable Systems

Secure Connectivity Options Allow Carriers a Way to ‘Breakout’ at NJFX New Jersey Data Center and Bypass Legacy Choke Points

October 24, 2017

WALL, NJ – NJFX, the first and only colocation campus to sit at a cable landing station in the U.S and offer Tier 3, carrier neutral data center capabilities, announces a new, direct way for carriers to reach the United States via the TGN-A and Seabras-1 cable systems. NJFX customers can reach these strategic subsea cables via secure Network to Network Interfaces (NNI) at NJFX’s New Jersey colocation campus. The NNIs contribute to guarantee increased performance, reliability and route diversity.

The breakout capabilities also allow carriers, service providers, content companies and enterprises high capacity, while eliminating traditional points of failure when providing US-Europe, US-Brazil, US-Asia connectivity. TGN-1 & 2 cables are submarine cable systems connecting Highbridge UK to Wall, New Jersey. U.S. Seabras-1 is a 10,500-km fiber optic cable that connects Sao Paulo, Brazil to the U.S. It offers connectivity to financial markets and other Latin America enterprises and bypasses the Atlantic hurricane zone.

For more information on the NJFX colocation campus, visit www.njfx.net.

###

About NJFX:

Wall’s fiber-optic hub connects the world, bets on giant data centers

Newsroom / NJFX

Wall’s fiber-optic hub connects the world, bets on giant data centers

Ryan Imkemeier Explains the Importance of Equipment Maintenance, Vendor Relationships, Electrical Distribution & Managing the Team

July 22, 2022

OCTOBER 5 2017, WALL NJ – It is strong enough to withstand a Category 5 hurricane. It has redundant electric systems. And it connects directly to underseas fiber-optic cables from its campus to Europe and South America.

Is it enough to attract companies needing secure places to store their data?

“We shouldn’t be backyard to New York City all the time,” said Gil Santaliz, chief executive officer of New Jersey Fiber Exchange. “Why do we have to go to New York? We’ve got our own assets here.”

A year after it opened, New Jersey Fiber Exchange is trying to capitalize on one of the township’s hidden treasures: the landing point for three underseas fiber optic cables connecting the U.S. to Europe and South America.

For now, New Jersey Fiber Exchange, a 64,000-square-foot, two-story fortress, rents space to communication companies, which then deliver data from the facility to their customers.

But Santaliz and investors have bought another nearly 50 acres next door, betting that their system can be a draw to new data centers, giant buildings filled with servers that store reams of information on the internet.

“For a user who needs international connectivity, it could be very beneficial,” said Jonathan Meisel, a senior vice president at commercial real estate business CBRE, based in central New Jersey.

Santaliz, 51, of Spring Lake, decided the venture was worth leaving what was an early retirement.

He previously started 4Connections, a company that built fiber-optic connections that were used by New Jersey government agencies and hospitals, and he sold it in 2008 to Cablevision for an undisclosed amount.

He said he often wondered how to better connect his customers with the international market, and he turned his attention to Wall, a town with a rich communications history.

It was home, for example, to Guglielmo Marconi’s Belmar Trans-Atlantic Wireless station that played a key role in overseas communications in World War I.

And it was home to TyCom, which opened a center in 2001 to operate underseas fiber-optic cables. TyCom’s parent company, Tyco, sold the division to the India-based Tata Group in 2004.

Once the data arrived through the underseas cables to Wall it was routed to Manhattan, where communication companies set up shop in what’s called a “meet-me-room” to exchange data.

Santaliz’s idea: What if communication companies could meet in Wall instead?

He and a group of investors, including Tata, bought about 1.4 acres in 2015 next door to Tata’s operations center for $400,000, according to property records. He declined to disclose how much it cost to build the structure.

A year after it opened, New Jersey Fiber Exchange hosts 10 communications companies, from Tata to TI Sparkle, an Italian carrier. It offers faster speed for data. And it gives them another option in case other communication centers are hit by natural disasters, for example.

“We allow carriers to pick their routes and have less points of failure,” Santaliz said.

The project could pay off for Wall. Santaliz and his partners purchased another 48 acres nearby that could attract data centers — buildings that store companies’ data.

The industry is growing fast, keeping up with an explosion in data use. Investors have pumped more than $45 billion into the sector the past five years with more than half of that coming since the start of 2016, according to CBRE.

New Jersey has its share, primarily thanks to financial services companies in Manhattan that could store data more securely and less expensively across the Hudson River.

That segment of the real estate market in New Jersey peaked in 2012. And other parts of the country, namely northern Virginia, have surpassed partially because of lower electric costs, CBRE’s Meisel said.

But New Jersey Fiber Exchange with its access to the international market could give it a chance to compete, Meisel said.

“We live in a global world and a lot of these data centers connect with each other around the country and now around the world,” he said.

Wall officials said they welcome the industry. It will do little to create permanent jobs; just 10 people work full-time at New Jersey Fiber Exchange. But it would turn the dusty Clayton Block Co. property into a high-tech center — without much traffic.

“We’re trying to get that property back to a use that is less impactful to residents that live around there,” Wall Mayor Nick DiRocco said.

It would be a stretch to think Wall could compete with places like Loudoun County, Virginia, which boasts of being the traffic cop for 70 percent of the world’s internet traffic.

But Santaliz thinks Wall, with its rich history and prime location, could join Jersey City as another hub.

“By having the infrastructure where all this connectivity can exist, we should take advantage of it,” he said, “and that’s what we’ve done.”

See the original article by Michael Diamond – Asbury Park Press

###

About NJFX:

2017 Storms May Mean Network Rethink

Newsroom / NJFX

2017 Storms May Mean Network Rethink

Major hurricanes, even ones as powerful and large as Hurricane Irma, don’t disrupt subsea cables, according to industry executives. But that doesn’t mean traffic crossing those cables won’t be disrupted by the damage from hurricanes, warns one data center operator.

See the original article here: Lightreading.com

September 22, 2017

Gil Santaliz, founder and managing director of New Jersey Fiber Exchange (NJFX) , the New Jersey-based data center located next to the Tata cable landing station in Wall, N.J., says the impact of storms such as the US and the Caribbean have seen this fall isn’t in the damage done to cables or even cable landing stations. It’s in what happens to traffic after it leaves those places. He’s expecting the global industry to take a long look at how traffic is managed going forward.

“It’s the aftermath of the hurricane, it’s the widespread electric outages, it’s the buildings the subsea cables go to that nobody knows they go to,” he says in an interview. “What we should have braced for was what happens a day or two after the storm. There are subsea landing stations on the east coast, Florida, but what folks in St. Louis, Chicago and Denver don’t realize is that all of that traffic from subsea networks ends up going to central hubs — and those were the places where large-scale power outages can have catastrophic effects on our networks.”

Businesses that were impacted when these traffic hubs went without commercial power for multiple days will now be motivated to take a closer look at how their networks are set up and rethink their diversity plans, Santaliz says. As a result, the fall’s destructive hurricane season may have an impact on how businesses — and carriers — plan network diversity, in much the same way that the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001 changed how the industry viewed New York City as a natural location for data centers, he notes.

“Post-9/11, there was a massive data center exodus out of New York City,” Santaliz says. “Then [Hurricane] Sandy came along and all of that flooding that happened in lower Manhattan was affecting the two buildings that were critical for the Europeans to connect to everyone in North America — 60 Hudson St. and 32 Avenue of the Americas.”

The result was that connections between Europe and Chicago or even New Jersey were impacted by the flooding in Manhattan, he says. And that led to businesses seeking diverse routes for that traffic as well. Now this round of hurricanes will prompt a closer examination of where the massive amount of traffic that comes through the Caribbean and lands in the US in Florida goes, once it leaves the landing station.

“What these storms are now pointing out is that you probably should take the due diligence to know how your network really works,” he says. “On a global basis, we expect our connectivity to always work but if we don’t ask hard questions, and make sure there is true diversity, then there are going to be unpleasant surprises.”

The cable landing stations themselves are, much like the subsea cables, likely to withstand even a Category 5 hurricane such as Irma, says Nigel Bayliff, CEO of Aqua Comms and a non-executive board member for Deep Blue Cable, developer of a subsea fiber optic system in the Caribbean.

“The cables are very much more secure underground and underwater,” he says. “There is a slight chance of movement of seabed caused by severe storm surge. The issue is, even if we are not affected, virtually everything else is. Potentially the landing stations can be, but we build them to withstand category 4-category 5 hurricanes. It’s everything you connect to next that you really can’t do something about.”

Bayliff also points to better construction of facilities, including interconnection and data center facilities themselves, to withstand storms and be prepared to go without commercial power for longer periods as powerful storms hit more frequently. Santaliz says that reality may force many companies to re-write their playbooks for how they prepare for natural disasters of this type.

“These events we are having now are so wide-scale, things aren’t on the procedure books to deal with them,” he says. That includes dealing with situations where most of a state, or even an entire island nation, is without power for a substantial period of time. “This is a process that is just beginning. If you are operating a hub, and it’s going to go on generator, situations like this will test your ability to get fuel and for your employees to get to work.”

At the same time, businesses are less likely to accept prolonged outages, he adds. “You can’t tell your customers, ‘We are going to have an outage and it will take me two days to fix it,’ because in some industries, that’s a non-starter,” he says.

— Carol Wilson, Editor-at-Large, Light Reading.

###

About NJFX:

NJFX Supports Global Communications Infrastructure From 1,500 Miles Away, As Historic Hurricane’s Impacts Are Felt

Newsroom / NJFX

NJFX Supports Global Communications Infrastructure From 1,500 Miles Away, As Historic Hurricane’s Impacts Are Felt

NJFX’s Colocation Campus is crucial in supporting interconnecting subsea cables, as Miami is threatened by the aftereffects of Irma

September 12, 2017

WALL, NJ – New Jersey Fiber Exchange (NJFX), the first and only colocation campus to sit at a cable landing station in the U.S and offers Tier 3, carrier neutral data center capabilities, announces today its urgent work with major carriers to expedite installation of infrastructure to support a major connectivity hub in jeopardy from Hurricane Irma related power outages.

It’s more important than ever for the United States to have the infrastructure in place to avoid a loss of global connectivity. “The way we communicate worldwide is through the Miami, Puerto Rico and New York City gateways,” states Gil Santaliz, CEO for NJFX. “If Miami went down, the only way to communicate to Europe and South America is through Puerto Rico. We are in contact right now with major carriers that supply connectivity to large, international companies and are looking to keep networks up and running. They are confidently turning to NJFX and rest assured that their needs will be met.”

Santaliz adds, “If New York’s telecom infrastructure is impacted either through natural or other disasters, then major carriers and telecoms will be adversely affected. Because NJFX has an optimal location in New Jersey, which bypasses legacy chokepoints and the congested NYC routes, we play a major a role in making networks work. NJFX offers a critical solution for multinational businesses and carriers in the U.S.”

NJFX’s New Jersey location is 64 feet above sea level, making it impervious to tidal surge and ideal for disaster recovery. NJFX clients can diversify their connectivity options to key hubs across North America, Europe, South America and the Caribbean. Through its many partnerships and more than 10 carriers and service provider partners, NJFX clients have direct access to any carrier’s suite of services in the NJFX ecosystem, without incurring cross-connect fees.

“Aqua Comms provides high capacity networking systems designed to future-proof connectivity options for cloud, content, service providers and carriers,” comments Nigel Bayliff, CEO for Aqua Comms. “We recognize the value of being strategically located at the NJFX campus because it securely interconnects major, international subsea networks with terrestrial networks on the U.S. east coast.“

For more information, please visit www.njfx.net. For the latest news, follow the company on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

###

About NJFX:

NJFX CEO: “We Provide Options”

Submarine Cable NewsFeed – Market Snapshot

Editor’s Note:

In September 2016, NJFX formally unveiled its data center campus located adjacent to the submarine cable landing station in Wall Township, New Jersey. The colorfully named “Tier 3 by the Subsea” was the first of its kind in the industry, disrupting the traditional backhaul model and redefining proximity by providing direct interconnection options at the cable-head without recurring costs on cross-connects.

“NJFX is doing something that no company has ever done before,” Gil Santaliz, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of NJFX, said at the September launch. “The unique location of our campus enables unprecedented access to a number of the most sought after subsea and terrestrial assets transporting traffic nationally, as well as internationally. NJFX ensures our customers receive the flexible, reliable and secure connectivity they require to support their growing business needs.”

Since September, NJFX’s facility has continued to develop. Another expansion phase was completed in January and the concept has clearly resonated within the industry as more submarine and terrestrial cable operators make connections.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Mr. Santaliz about NJFX and what the future may hold:

Santaliz: “We have several billion dollars’ worth of assets sitting in our NJFX Campus now. We have three transatlantic cables — two Tata Communications cables, which were there when we arrived, and now Aquacomms has come in and installed their equipment in the building to provide a third way across to Europe with their AEconnect cable. Seaborn Network’s new Seabras-1 cable from the US to Brazil also will be connected when it becomes ready for service this summer. So we are continuing to be unique. We are up to four subsea cables and we’re rivalling any location in the US or the world in terms of having so much subsea cable capacity in one place.

We provide options. You can bypass New York City by using Tata from Ashburn, Virginia, or any part of the US. We have alternate paths across the Atlantic. We have two ways to apply access to Seabras-1. TI Sparkle, which purchased three fiber pairs on Seabras-1, has taken residence in our facility, and the cable also can be accessed through Tata. There’s one cross-connect in the building rather than going all around New York or New Jersey, thus reducing latency and increasing efficiency.

On the US side, we’ve had Lightower come in and install their network and they’re about to put in a second cable in the building for diversity. Altice (formerly CableVision Lightpath) has installed their network. We always had Windstream offering capacity at our facility and we’re talking to Zayo about increasing the capacity it has. So we are the center of the universe between the US, Europe and South America — between the US domestic fiber networks and the European and South America cable operators.

We made a decision about three months ago to take an opportunity to expand our property. We were always a 10-acre site with Tata and we are finalizing our joint venture to expand to 48 more acres. We had a large Fortune 100 company knock on our door and the amount of space they wanted from us exceeded what we could do for them, so we took the initiative to take up 48 more acres. We also expanded our relationship with the electric utility and now we can offer not only Tier 3 but Tier 4 for additional and increment space.

We need to all think differently because the world is changing so quickly. The telecommunications network is a global platform and the assets should reflect how we currently operate. People expect things to work whether you’re in Denmark or Frankfurt or Latin America. Content needs to move. Latency is important. Diversity is important. Our model is to give customers reliable, high-performance, reduced cost access to critical submarine cable assets so that they can do business, provide services and support all these new ideas that people have out there in the increasingly dynamic world.

Read full article at submarineworld.com/…

###

About NJFX:

July 20, 2017

NJFX’s CEO Gil Santaliz to Speak at Metro Connect 2018

More In the News

Aqua Comms Continues Investment in Subsea Cables and Announces North Atlantic Bridge

More In the News

NJFX CEO: “The Revolution Has Started!”

Gil Santaliz

More In the News

Changing the Cable Landing Station Equation

Gil Santaliz

More In the News

NJFX new connection routes via Sparkle’s Seabras-1

More In the News

NJFX Offers Global Carriers New, Diverse Ways to Connect to the U.S. via Multiple Subsea Cable Systems

More In the News

Wall’s fiber-optic hub connects the world, bets on giant data centers

Gil Santaliz

More In the News

2017 Storms May Mean Network Rethink

Gil Santaliz

More In the News

NJFX Supports Global Communications Infrastructure From 1,500 Miles Away, As Historic Hurricane’s Impacts Are Felt

More In the News

NJFX CEO: “We Provide Options”

Gil Santaliz

More In the News

Clients

Follow Us

Hello!

Let's have a chat

Learn how we helped 100 top brands gain success.