Will Tax Incentives Jump-Start NJ’s Data Center Industry?

Article by Rich Miller, published by Data Center Frontier

Can New Jersey re-establish itself as a major player on the U.S. data center scene? Gil Santaliz believes it can, if the Garden State can follow the lead of at least 27 other states and offer tax incentives for the data center industry.

Santaliz, the founder and CEO of the NJFX data campus in Wall, N.J., says he has been in discussions with state officials about the merits of data center incentives, and is hopeful that the dialogue will lead to legislation.

“We’ve met with the governor and leaders in the legislature,” said Santaliz. “Twenty years ago, New Jersey probably led the country and data center space, but we haven’t moved the needle at all in 20 years.”

New Jersey was once a hotbed of data center activity, with thriving markets for colocation and financial data centers. The state maintains a substantial and strategically important data center community, but the hottest leasing action has shifted elsewhere, primarily to Northern Virginia.

“We are helping the state of New Jersey evaluate the opportunities,” said Santaliz. “There is a bill being looked at, and it looks very similar to the broad strokes of what you see in Virginia.”

NJ’s Business Incentives in Transition

Northern Virginia is the world’s largest data center market, has experienced unprecedented growth amid the shift to cloud computing. At more than 1 gigawatt of data center capacity, it is twice the size of any other market in the United States.

In Virginia, most data center facilities are exempt from state sales and use taxes, so long as they spend at least $150 million and create between 25-50 new jobs in the area. Those tax breaks are good through 2035, providing long-term visibility into operating costs for data center operators.

“If we get a package like that, we’re back in business again as a state,” said Santaliz. “Data centers create no burden on the school’s fire district or roads. It’s just tax revenue on the real estate side, without all the people. The labor unions love data centers. They’re good for electricians and construction.”

“I think data centers will only go where they’re welcome.”
Gil Santaliz, CEO of NJFX

The outreach from the data center sector comes as New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is seeking to revamp the state’s approach to economic incentives for business. The state Economic Development Authority (EDA) has awarded more than $11 billion in tax breaks to corporations since 2005, but Murphy says applicants have been poorly vetted and the programs have failed to deliver for New Jersey residents.

“The return on investment the state achieves through these programs is unacceptable, and the ability for well-connected interests to exploit the many loopholes of the programs is shameful,” the Democratic governor said in 2019.

The Murphy administration is expected to overhaul the state’s business incentive programs later this spring, after receiving a final report from a task force on the issue. That could provide a window of opportunity for the data center industry.

Some States See Big Boost From Data Centers

At least 27 states now use economic incentives to attract data center projects, yearning to land deals with Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon or Microsoft that would signal their transition to the new digital economy. In some areas, incentives for data centers have become a hot button issue, with taxpayers and legislators questioning the value of perks for giant tech companies

Emergency backup generators

Generators inside a New Jersey data center. (Photo: Rich Miller)

The math behind data centers is focused on tax revenue, rather than the traditional economic development benchmark of job creation. That’s because data centers involve huge capital investment, but are highly-automated and typically create between 25 and 50 full-time positions.

But the economic development power of data centers has been showcased by a revenue windfall in Virginia’s Loudoun County, home to a large cloud cluster in Ashburn. County officials expect the direct tax revenue from the data center industry will exceed $320 million in the current fiscal year – nearly double the projections from 2018.

That cloud building boom enabled the county to adopt a 2019 budget featuring reduced property taxes, a $76 million increase in funding for county schools, and the addition of 204 new positions in county government.

Experiences vary by region and city, but there is a growing body of data affirming the impact of data centers in revenue and jobs for local economies. In an environment where many local jurisdictions struggle to balance their budgets, Virginia’s success illustrates the potential for data centers to be compelling engines of prosperity.

There is also recent evidence that incentives can make an impact. The state of Illinois recently passed data center incentives, hoping to offset a slowdown in data center leasing in the state. The move has seen immediate benefits in expansion announcements from T5 Data Centers and Microsoft.

NJ Data Center Market Struggles to Compete

The New Jersey data center market is home to about 2.1 million square feet of data center space, according to research from datacenterHawk. With a vacancy rate hovering between 15 and 20 percent in recent years, New Jersey has more unfilled space than many leading data center markets, reflecting lower demand.

In the 1990s, New Jersey benefited from its proximity to New York, with many financial service providers shifting their IT workloads to facilities across the river. That trend gained pace after the 9-11 terror attacks, as financial regulators cracked down on key financial players that had both production and backup data centers in the five boroughs.

Colocation facilities thrived in Weehawken, Secaucus and Clifton, while an active wholesale market emerged in Central New Jersey around Piscataway. Meanwhile, many large financial services firms built stand-alone data centers in New Jersey, including the NYSE and NASDAQ stock exchanges. The rise of automated trading strategies, including high-frequency trading (HFT) brought added momentum.

All of these market drivers took a hit in the financial crisis of 2008-2009, as Wall Street retrenched and has had a less robust appetite for data center space ever since. That led to a surplus of space in 2011-12, from which the NJ market has been slowly recovering.

In recent years there has been a modest uptick in demand, with Iron Mountain, CyrusOne and QTS Data Centers entering the market. Last year saw a significant uptick in leasing of wholesale data center space, paced by an expansion by Bloomberg at several sites in Central New Jersey. “New Jersey achieved a large increase of more than 10 MW in leasing by financial firms,” said North American Data Centers in a market analysis released this week.

Can NJ Win the Big Cloud Deals?

But New Jersey has largely missed the cloud computing boom, as large deals have sought states where it is cheaper to do business. Northern Virginia had a record 270 megawatts of leasing in 2018, or more than 20 times the volume of New Jersey’s leasing.

Cable to Cloud: New Data Flows Raise Hopes

One issue is the price of electricity. Power in New Jersey is significantly cheaper than New York, which helped attract customers moving out of Manhattan. But in recent years NJ has lost out to East Coast states with even cheaper power, including Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia.

Santaliz believes the best way for New Jersey to gain traction is with tax incentives. “New Jersey is plagued with high taxes,” said Santaliz. This is a way to combat that.”

NJFX is one of the largest recent data center construction projects in New Jersey. In 2016 it opened 64,000 square foot Tier III data center built next to a cable landing station in Wall Township operated by Tata Communications. Santaliz believes the subsea cables offer a focal point for future development. NJFX has additional land and power capacity for large hyperscale data centers – a lucrative sector that is often wooed through tax incentives.

“We’ve got critical mass in undersea cables,” said Santaliz. “We’re one mile from the ocean, but 64 feet above sea level. You can’t get that anywhere else on the East Coast. We’re positioned between New York and Ashburn. We couldn’t be better located

“I think data centers in the United States will only go to states where they’re welcome,” he added. “New Jersey is not as expensive as New York, and not as cheap as Ashburn. But with the right incentives, we could find ourselves looking just like Ashburn, only with better weather and the subsea cables already in place.”

Will Tax Incentives Jump-Start NJ’s Data Center Industry? Read More »

Telenor Maritime To Establish Direct Connect From NJFX Cable Landing Station Campus to Norway

Newsroom / Sarah Kurtz

Enables cyber-secure digital infrastructures and transmission of enormous amounts of data

Wall, NJ – January 28, 2020 – NJFX, the only Cable Landing Station (CLS) colocation campus in the U.S offering Tier 3, carrier-neutral data center capabilities announces today that Telenor Maritime has expanded its U.S presence at the NJFX CLS campus. Telenor Maritime is establishing a direct connection to Norway via the 7200km Havfrue subsea cable system, which traverses the North Atlantic and connects the U.S. at NJFX to mainland Northern Europe. Focused on accelerating operational efficiency and boosting marine and shore connectivity, Telenor Maritime offers ships and rigs cyber-secure digital infrastructures and the capability to wirelessly transmit enormous amounts of information.

“We welcome Telenor Maritime to our growing NJFX ecosystem,” comments Gil Santaliz, CEO for NJFX. “The company will be one of the first telecom operators to take advantage of Bulk Infrastructure’s Nordic Gateway at NJFX. This gateway will directly connect U.S. content, cloud and service providers with the Nordics, unlocking the many capabilities related to sustainable digital services and emissions-free hydropower.”

Telenor Maritime, owned by Telenor Group, is the only operator at sea with a fully managed service, offering all mobile access technologies such as 2G, 3G, 4G, Wi-Fi and VSAT for ships and offshore platforms. With the goal of empowering the digital worker, Telenor Maritime is the only supplier that offers a digital platform with high-speed internet and 4G in the same ecosystem.

“As the leading global communication operator at sea, Telenor Maritime is on the forefront of developing and defining secure standards for the maritime business,” comments Lars-Erik Lunøe, CEO at Telenor Maritime. “As part of the new landing point at NJFX’s carrier-neutral campus, Telenor will access the new Havfrue subsea cable and offer direct connections from the U.S east coast to the Bulk Infrastructure campus in Norway, N01, which hosts our new core site. We chose the NJFX SSAE 16/18 certified infrastructure due to its rich ecosystem of global connectivity providers and subsea cable systems, as well as for its close proximity to the Satellite Teleport in Holmdel, New Jersey. We are well on our way to unlocking the Nordics and enabling new capabilities for our clients globally.”

NJFX is home to four subsea cable systems and seven independent U.S. fiber-based backhaul providers, offering a marketplace rich with fiber networks and platforms providing multiple options for routes, security and diversity while creating a new model of the CLS as a hub of unprecedented capacity and connectivity. For more information, please visit www.njfx.net or contact info@njfx.net.

About NJFX

NJFX owns and operates a 64,800 square foot purpose-built Tier 3 Cable Landing Station (CLS) Colocation facility and 58-acre campus in Wall, NJ. This unique campus is the only carrier-neutral CLS colocation campus in the U.S supported by several route-independent carriers that offer direct access to multiple independent subsea cable systems interconnecting North America, Europe, South America and the Caribbean. The facility offers direct access to TGN1, TGN2, and Seabras. The building is the subsea cable landing of HAVFRUE/AEC2 this year as well as Wall-LI in the future. High and low-density colocation solutions are available with 24/7 support.

For NJFX media inquiries, please contact: media@njfx.net

About Telenor Maritime

Telenor Maritime has been leading the evolution of secure connectivity at sea since 2004, enabling the global maritime industry for IoT. In one digital ecosystem, we provide unique solutions permitting the same quality of experience at sea as on land, increasing profitability through operational excellence. Telenor Maritime is part of Telenor Group , one of the world’s major mobile operators. Through Telenor, we have access to a broad range of competence and resources to market, product, innovation and content development. Telenor Maritime is serving more than 100 ship owners, 25 million passengers and crew on board more than 400 vessels worldwide. For more information, please visit www.telenormaritime.com

For Telenor Maritime inquiries, please contact:

CEO

Lars Erik Lunøe

+47 90973006

LEL@telenormaritime.com

Telenor Maritime To Establish Direct Connect From NJFX Cable Landing Station Campus to Norway Read More »

NJFX: The Marseille of the US

Newsroom / Sarah Kurtz

NJFX: The Marseille of the US

Article by Jason McGee-Abe, Published in Capacity Magazine Volume 20 Issue 1, pages 48 & 49

December 5, 2019

As I make my way up to interview Santaliz, I think about how far New Jersey Fiber Exchange (NJFX) has come in becoming a household name in such a sport space of time.

Before walking into the NJFX meeting room at Capacity Europe I immediately notice the adjacent room. It’s hosting Interxion and two things spring to my mind. Firstly, about the news that broke the night before that Digital Realty was acquiring Interxion for $8.4 billion, the biggest data center deal in history, and the interesting conversations that must be happening inside. Secondly, the influence that the Interxion business model that originated in Marseille has had on NJFX’s evolution.

Where did it all begin?

The concept saw a joint venture formed and launched in 2015 with a group of investors, which included Tata Communications. “Originally, we were going to be a sidekick to Tata in that we were building a Tier III data centre next to their cable landing station (CLS),” says Santaliz. “We put the capital up for the land, construction, and then interconnected the facility with the cable landing station (CLS).” NJFX build a 1.4 acre plot next door to the Tata Communications subsea CLS, where it built a meet-me room (MMR). After a short while there were some management changes at Tata Communications and the relationship changed somewhat. “They are still a shareholder today but not to the same extent,” he adds.

Prior to founding NJFX, the telecommunications executive sold metro dark fibre provider 4Connections to Optimum Lightpath, a subsidiary of New York cable operator Cablevision (now Altice USA), in 2008 for an undisclosed amount.

In September 2015, NJFX announced it would construct a 64,000 sq ft Tier III data centre facility adjacent to Tata’s CLS, providing direct access to its European and South American subsea cables: TGN Atlantic and Seabras-1. Exactly one year later, NJFX launched the carrier-neutral colocation facility. “It had compute, carrier-neutrality and business from metro players,” explains the CEO. NJFX offered terrestrial connections to such operators as Altice, Crown Castle Fiber, Epsilon, Windstream, Zayo and ZenFi.

Interxion influence

“We had developed our relationship with Interxion at Capacity events and watched what they were doing in Marseille,” he explains. “I met with Dave Ruberg [CEO of Interxion] and even went to the WWII submarine repair facility in Marseille where he said that he was going to turn it into a big international CLS.” Santaliz admits that he thought Ruberg was out of his mind at the statement but has been amazed watching it all become a reality. Interxion has certainly helped to boost the city of Marseille, which now plays host to 14 subsea cables. This visionary idea struck Santaliz and, with the support of his partners, NJFX purchased another 48 acres next door back in Wall, New Jersey. “We got the right to put another data centre in, which was a 150,000 sq ft 15 MW facility with a separate CLS.”

“Subsea players approached us as a result of our independence and carrier-neutral approach, saying that they would bring the cable straight into our building,” the CEO adds. After the first cable was confirmed for the CLS, NJFX approached SubCom and a blossoming partnership is still ongoing.

From that moment, NJFX went from being the sidekick of a joint venture building a Tier III data centre to support Tata Communcations to becoming the host of its own subsea CLS and carrier-neutral site. Today, NJFX owns and operates a 58-acre campus. It has the ability to interconnect to multiple subsea and terrestrial cables from one place. Following Ruberg’s vision, Santaliz and his partners have created the Marseille of the US.

“We have two MMRs that are interconnected to each other, so we don’t discriminate,” Santaliz says. The carrier-neutral player’s philosophy is to help carriers grow their business and not get in the way it even commits to not even selling internet to its customers. “So we’ve created a true carrier-neutral product that the market wanted and really needed,” he adds. “We don’t sell anything other than space and power. We’re hosting subsea cables in a building in the US and there’s no other place in the US that does what we do.”

Dual CLS partnership

News circulated around the industry in October that NJFX now marks the spot of the first-ever dual CLS to terrestrial interconnection after partnering with Telxius and Windstream Wholesale.

The NJFX CLS in Wall, NJ, is now connected to Telxius facilities at the CLS in Virginia Beach, VA, which is connected to the MAREA and BRUSA subsea cables. Windstream supports the connection with over 500Tbps of transmission capacity, boostin global connectivity options.

“We are proud to be the catalyst of the first-ever CLS to CLS terrestrial route. This is an integral part of the shift the industry is seeing in new infrastructure being deployed to replace the old networking models,” proclaims Santaliz. No one ever really thought of using the east coast of the United States to get traffic up and down before but NJFX is helping this become a reality, he adds. Another system linked to this is Crosslake Fibre’s 95km unrepeatered subsea fibre-optic cable to Long Island.

“The total capacity of the subsea cables coming out of these two cable landing stations is greater than all of the capacity of the previously placed North American subsea cables stretching across the Atlantic Ocean combined. Windstream and Telxius are bilaterally leveraging each company’s routes to address customer network diversity requirements and capacity needs. The potential for clients is endless.”

NJFX has sealed a number of partnerships over the past year, which has included the European-based carrier class Ethernet exchange NetIX, which connects over 20 IXPs that serve more than 100 members, enter the US market for the first time by launching a new PoP at the NJFX colocation campus. The PoP at NJFX also provides opportunities for American peers to exchange traffic directly with other peers around the world. NetIX declared that it picked NJFX because of the array of subsea cable systems it has landing at its cable landing station.

Other partnerships formed include Epsilon connecting its SDN backbone to NJFX’s CLS colocation facility, allowing customers to bypass New York entirely and gives user access to on-demand local, regional and global connectivity. Telia Carrier deployed a network PoP, delivering multi-terabit capacity at the NJFX CLS colocation campus. The new network infrastructure provides resilient network options for customers wanting diverse connectivity throughout North America. By leveraging the Havfrue/AEC-2 subsea cable system located at NJFX, Telia carrier customers can reach Denmark directly and transit the Nordics, Baltics, and can access four unique fibre routes going into Russia.

New intercontinental capabilities

Another level of NJFX’s evolution involves the establishment of new intercontinental wide area network (WAN) capabilities between North America, South America and Europe, which have been developed in partnership with Bulk Infrastructure and Neutrona Networks.

The highly anticipated Havfrue transatlantic subsea cable network lands into NJFX’s CLS campus. It runs between New Jersey and Denmark, with branches into Ireland and Norway. The consortium backing the new transatlantic cable includes Aqua Comms, Bulk Infrastructure, Facebook and Google. The system is expected to be ready for service in Q4 2019.

The next wave of technological advancement will be just as compelling with the onset of the enterprise revolution, which takes the WAN model and extends it into other continents through NJFX’s unique CLS campus. Santaliz discloses that NJFX is now open to bespoke facilities on its campus. “We’re building out the campus and we’re going to announce that we’ll have a new cable station building available that someone can have for their own use,” Santaliz tells me. “If someone wants their own four walls, here’s a building that we can create, which is a 15MW data centre and you can do your own thing.”

With the industry constantly growing, we’re all trying to keep up with the explosion of data usage. NJFX has firmly established itself as an innovative on/off ramp to global networks and is in a unique position as one of the most critical meet-me points for access to international connectivity. It has started a revolution in the subsea industry with its carrier-neutral Tier 3 by the subsea model and bespoke agile approach. It’s clear to see why business is booming in New Jersey.

###

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.

Telia Carrier Opens Terabit Scale PoP at NJFX

Newsroom / Sarah Kurtz

Telia Carrier Opens Terabit Scale PoP at NJFX

October 29, 2019

London, Capacity Europe – Telia Carrier today announced that it has deployed a new network Point-of-Presence (PoP) delivering multi-terabit capacity at the NJFX Cable Landing Station (CLS) colocation campus. The new network infrastructure provides resilient network options for customers wanting diverse connectivity throughout North America. In addition, Telia Carrier’s extensive network in Europe enables seamless reach and unique diversity to connect from the cable landing point to extended destinations across Europe.

Telia Carrier’s new PoP in the NJFX facility provides high capacity, flexibility, and access to multiple reliable, diverse routes. By leveraging the Havfrue/AEC2 subsea cable system located at NJFX, Telia Carrier customers can now reach Denmark directly and transit the Nordics, Baltics, and can access four unique fiber routes going into Russia. Organizations located at NJFX can now access the Seabras cable system with direct routes into South America, ideal for LATAM customers looking for network diversity, terrestrial extensions, and IP connectivity.

“Telia Carrier’s terabit scale capacity expansion into NJFX is a perfect embodiment of NJFX’s mission to enable the resilient global connectivity and capabilities for our customers and carrier partners,” said Gil Santaliz, CEO, NJFX. “Enterprises, financials, and service provider customers can now connect directly into Telia Carrier’s network and access a seamless network solution with terrestrial backhaul routes that reach key points of presence across the East Coast and beyond.”

Financial organizations located at NJFX can leverage Telia Carrier’s connectivity linking subsea cables to financial data centers throughout New Jersey and New York. This offers the ability to extend capacity from the NJFX CLS campus and access unique routes bypassing Manhattan and Northern New Jersey, along with connecting to new subsea cables coming online for increased network transparency and resiliency.

“We designed our architecture at NJFX to support high capacity and huge demand ahead for expanded network reach and resiliency,” said Staffan Göjeryd, CEO, Telia Carrier. “At the NJFX CLS, we offer maximum flexibility and extensions into the rest of the Telia Carrier global network and tying it into the recently announced expansion of the East Coast corridor where we added two new routes between New Jersey and Northern Virginia.”

Top-ranked global backbone

For more than two decades, Telia Carrier’s global fiber backbone has grown organically, without acquisitions. It was the first network to successfully transmit 1 Tb/s in super channels on its U.S. network and recently announced the first real-time transmission of 600Gb/s wavelengths in a live production network. According to Dyn Research’s global backbone rankings, Telia Carrier’s global IP backbone, AS1299, is currently ranked number one. The company enables worldwide connectivity by connecting more than 300 Points of Presence (PoPs) across Europe, North America, Asia, and the Middle East.

About Telia Carrier

Telia Carrier owns and operates one of the world’s most extensive fiber backbones. Our mission is to provide exceptional network infrastructure and services – empowering individuals, businesses and societies to execute their most critical activities. By working close to our customers, we make big ideas happen at the speed of fiber. Discover more at teliacarrier.com.

About NJFX

To request a meeting with NJFX executives, please email meetings@njfx.net. For more information, please visit www.njfx.net.

Media contact:
For Telia Carrier please contact:
Jeannette Bitz – Witz Communications
+1.510.599.5499
Teliacarrier@witzcommunications.com

For NJFX please contact:

emily@njfx.net

###

About NJFX:

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Telia Carrier Opens Terabit Scale PoP at NJFX Read More »

First ever CLS to CLS terrestrial connection

NJFX and Telxius Ecosystems are Booming – Increasing Global Connectivity Options with First-Ever Dual Cable Landing Station Terrestrial Connection

Newsroom / Sarah Kurtz

NJFX and Telxius Ecosystems are Booming – Increasing Global Connectivity Options with First-Ever Dual Cable Landing Station Terrestrial Connection

Windstream connects Wall NJ to Virginia Beach Supporting over 500 Terabits per second of transmission Capacity

October 14, 2019

Wall, NJ and Madrid, Spain – NJFX, the only Cable Landing Station (CLS) colocation campus in the U.S offering Tier 3, carrier-neutral data center capabilities, and Telxius, the communications infrastructure company of the Telefónica Group, announce significant development at their Cable Landing Station (CLS) campuses. As a driver of collaboration among carriers, subsea cable operators, enterprises and cloud providers within its CLS ecosystem, NJFX marks the spot of the first-ever CLS to CLS terrestrial interconnection, which connects NJFX CLS in Wall, NJ to Telxius facilities at the CLS in Virginia Beach, VA. The NJFX ecosystem boom is driven in part by its strategic location 64 feet above sea level and Category 5 hurricane resistant CLS campus with access to three subsea cables today, increasing to a total of four subsea cables in 4Q2019 that will exceed capacity of 500 Terabits per second of transmission capacity. The Telxius communications campus at Virginia Beach provides direct access to the top 2 capacity subsea cables in the world, MAREA and BRUSA.

“We are proud to be the catalyst of the first-ever CLS to CLS terrestrial route,” states Gil Santaliz, CEO for NJFX. “This is an integral part of the shift the industry is seeing in new infrastructure being deployed to replace the old networking models. The total capacity of the subsea cables coming out of these two cable landing stations is greater than all of the capacity of the previously placed North American subsea cables stretching across the Atlantic combined. Windstream and Telxius are bilaterally leveraging each company’s routes to address customer network diversity requirements and capacity needs. The potential for clients is endless.”

“Telxius as a world-class communications infrastructure company, is keen to enable the interconnection of two key cable landing stations in the US, offering the strategic ability of network protection at the subsea cable level,” states Gerardo Bonilla, Head of Sales for Telxius. “A pioneer as the first provider with connectivity between these two cable landing stations, Windstream can offer robust options to customers to use either cable landing station. Our companies are now able to provide our respective customers end to end global solutions leveraging Windstream’s robust US network and the Telxius subsea global network. Additionally, we are happy to be able to offer services over MAREA and BRUSA from NJFX facilities, creating tremendous value.”

“Our fiber deployment between two of the most important cable landing stations along the east coast aligns with Windstream’s core strategy to take our national network – global,” comments Joe Scattareggia, Executive Vice President, Windstream Wholesale. “Our fiber connectivity across the US from Canada to Mexico, combined with our build out at the NJFX CLS campus in New Jersey and at the Telxius CLS campus in Virginia Beach, offers customers the ability to leverage our national network and go beyond.”

Windstream’s state-of-the-art domestic network consists of approximately 150,000 fiber route miles and connects Tier 1, 2 and 3 cities across the nation. Secure and robust, the core network’s high-performance, point-to-point 1G to 100G optical transport ensures direct connectivity, transparency and control to support customer diversity requirements. In addition, Windstream also provides access to cloud resources at the edge, including from the most popular carrier hotels and data centers to unique locations not available with other carriers. Windstream provides high-speed connectivity directly into NJFX CLS and Telxius CLS campus, enabling access to multiple subsea cable systems. Customers can now also extend their reach through Telxius’s network into South America and Europe.

NJFX’s CLS campus offers access to four subsea cable systems to Europe and South America and seven independent US fiber based backhaul providers. Customers can access points of presence in 15 countries across Central and South America, Mexico and the Caribbean.

The Telxius CLS campus in Virginia Beach, includes the Telxius facilities at the MAREA and BRUSA CLS. MAREA’s 200 Tbps transmission capacity plus BRUSA’s 138 Tbps equal that of the top 10 hub cities in the world combined, ranked by international capacity.[1] They are uniquely suited to deliver massive capacity and the lowest possible latencies. In addition to offering direct access to those two subsea cable systems to Europe and South America, the Telxius CLS campus features connections with several independent US fiber based backhaul providers. Access to other advanced subsea cables will be completed soon. Additionally, the Telxius Communications Campus in Virginia Beach connects directly to main data center campuses in Ashburn, Richmond and Phoenix.

For a meeting with Telxius executives, please email sales@telxius.com. For more information on Telxius, go to www.telxius.com.

To request a meeting with NJFX executives, please email meetings@njfx.net. For more information, please visit www.njfx.net.

###

About NJFX:

About Telxius

Telxius is the infrastructure company of the Telefónica Group including tower and subsea cable business segments. Telxius effectively serves customers through an international network of 87,000 km of high capacity fiber optic subsea cables, including MAREA and BRUSA, the two highest capacity systems in the world, to go up to 100,000 km by 2021. In addition, the company features an extensive 17,550 tower portfolio, being the leading tower company in Spain, Germany, Peru and Argentina and a main provider in Brazil and Chile.

There Is a Greater Good Involved

Newsroom / NJFX

There Is a Greater Good Involved

An interview with Gil Santaliz, CEO of NJFX

July 19, 2019

WALL TOWNSHIP, NJ –

Editor’s Note: NJFX CEO Gil Santaliz is one of the most colorful people in the submarine cable industry. During ITW, SubCableWorld had the pleasure to sit down and speak with him about a wide range of topics, including a number of recent announcements regarding the North Atlantic market and Mr. Santaliz’s views on working to benefit society. His comments are below.

Mr. Santaliz: This is an exciting time for our company and the industry in general. NJFX made a major announcement last week and there were several made here at ITW that involve companies we work with.

Our announcement was that a Point of Presence (PoP) has been established at our submarine cable landing station and data center campus by Neutrona Networks, which has an extensive network throughout Latin America.

What Neutrona brings to the table is 15 years of experience in knowing how Latin America really works. The average US-Latin America provider doesn’t know the intricacies of all the capillarity and all the little guys that you have to pull together to make Latin America work. What Neutrona has done is taken that expertise in the marketplace and brought it to the US in a platform that you can plug in and get all that infrastructure — point and click.

Neutrona’s SDN platform in Latin America makes it a lot easier for the carriers to be able to navigate without having to figure out what’s down there and how it works. Just like in the US, no one wants to hear that their network went down because their manhole caught fire and they thought they had four carriers, but it turns out they’re all in the same manhole. What Neutrona has done is figured out the countries and manholes and beach landings and pulled it all together. The biggest US carriers depend on Neutrona to get it right. Now, Neutrona is making that available to the multinational enterprise. For example, for a large enterprise that has 12 countries that it needs to reach in Latin America, Neutrona will give you one price for 12 countries.

Another major announcement involves Aqua Comms and the AEC-2 transatlantic cable. AEC-2 is Aqua Comms’ branding of fiber pairs of the Havfrue cable system. Aqua Comms also announced that it would connect AEC-2 to the Interxion data center in Denmark.

Think about what Nigel Bayliff has accomplished at Aqua Comms. He is a great success story in that he repositioned his company in the industry and went from AEC-1, to AEC- 2 and next up is a North Atlantic- US loop. He created a solution that the industry was looking for, with diversity yet consistency in how they operate.

Aqua Comms doesn’t compete with its customers. They’re not leaving the NJFX cable station. They say to their customers “You can pick it up here, sell to all your customers, and buy it by the drink, not the firehose. What would you like to have? There is plenty of capacity as your needs and requirements change.”

Remember, Aqua Comms also has existing customers on the other systems. They’re now offering everyone optionality. They’ll attract a whole new set of customers that wouldn’t have bought before because they didn’t have that second loop connection. So, the loop really provides a good resiliency for that service.

Another announcement was made by Bulk Infrastructure, one of Aqua Comms’ partners in the Havfrue system. Bulk announced the Nordic Gateway at ITW, an on-ramp solution accessing fiber networks that unlocks the Nordic region’s sustainable natural resources. They are unique because Peder Naerboe, Bulk’s owner and chairman, now has a higher cause – to see the world embrace renewable energy, which Norway can do. What Norway is missing is the access to global networks. Naerboe’s passion is to make Norway a connected point and if you combine that with what Aqua Comms is now doing, they’re both pulling the same wagon for the country of Norway.

Bulk had a launch event recently announcing that its on-ramp for Europe is at NJFX. Carriers can access the Havfrue cable system there and can take you to either Ireland, Denmark or Norway. Bulk is embracing the natural resources of Norway – renewable energy. And they’re partnering with folks that can make that happen, get Norway more interconnected and have the assets to make Norway the center of hyperscale cloud infrastructure.

Bulk Infrastructure is just getting started. They’re looking to do more projects and get involved in more partnerships. I think you’ll see a lot of news this year from Bulk regarding how they will approach connectivity between Europe and the US. You’ll see partnerships that you never thought of before.

There are important developments going on in the US as well. At NJFX, we are very aware that the data centers are no longer where the people are. 25 years ago, New York City led the US in data center space. Back then, data centers were in office buildings and in closets. “Where’s your data center? Well, it’s down the hallway or in the basement. I’ve got 20 servers in there and the AC is humming.”

The people are still in the Northeast, around one-third of the country’s population is there, but where is the cloud infrastructure? South of the Mason-Dixon Line. And how do you get to the cloud infrastructure? It’s via the same congested routes that were built 20 years ago down the I-95 corridor.

What the subsea guys are starting to realize is that the infrastructure can’t support it. There are various groups talking about a project using the ocean along the East Coast to get up and down the coast because the cost and the right of way issues in the US are insurmountable. It’s either a railroad or a highway, and it’s not cheap either way. The days of a network not being available is no longer an option for any industry, so customers need to find alternative routes.

The industry I think about the most is the banking industry. They’re in the business of trust and provide us with much needed liquidity. The banks are finding themselves in an awkward position in that the network was never their core competency, but nowadays they have to be very, very good at this. Now, they need to know how their network works. The next wave of OTTs could be banks. They can’t afford to be left behind. I’m sure we will see more on this front in the year ahead. Facebook has come out with its new currency, the Libra. It starts out with a 2-billion customer potential. There’s no bank out there with a 2-billion customer potential and the brand recognition that Facebook has. And it’s just a transaction.

Another thing you’re seeing in this industry is a focus on the benefit of society as a whole. There is a phrase at NJFX that we’ve embraced: “Socially Responsible Capitalism.” We all want to make a return on our investments. We want to make our investors feel good about their choices, but at the same time there is a greater good. You can’t just do things to make a dollar and leave the environment a mess or destroy a generation. Our industry is in a position to effect generations to come, depending on what part of the industry you’re in. Think about some of the larger OTTs, how they can affect a generation. There is a greater good involved here and I think we’re all starting to understand that we have a big role in all of this.

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About NJFX:

Tapping into the Nordic Region as the Next Frontier in Connectivity

Newsroom / NJFX

Tapping into the Nordic Region as the Next Frontier in Connectivity

NJFX’S VP of Business Development Heads to Subsea EMEA in Marseille with Insight About the Nordic Gateway

July 2, 2019

WALL TOWNSHIP, NJ – Roy Hilliard, VP of Business Development for NJFX, is bringing his expertise and thought leadership to Capacity’s Subsea EMEA conference in Marseille, France on July 8-10. The conference brings together 350+ commercial subsea experts for an industry touch-point to advance subsea cable investment in the EMEA region.

Mr. Hilliard will participate in the panel entitled “The Nordics – What is Fueling the Region’s Subsea Connectivity to Grow at a Rate of Knots?” He has unique insight to share, as NJFX was the conduit for bringing the Nordic Gateway to the U.S., the on-ramp solution into the Havfrue Cable System, stretching 7,200 kilometers from New Jersey to Ireland, Denmark and Norway. Bulk Infrastructure’s exclusive ownership of the Norwegian branch of the system unlocks one of the few genuinely sustainable solutions in the data center industry today. With this solution, the data center industry can utilize 100% pure emissions-free hydropower from the Nordic countries.

The project makes for perfect discussion on the panel, which will include topics such as:

New & diverse submarine fiber infrastructure projects in and around the Nordics
How the region is benefitting from new international subsea cables landing in the North Atlantic How changes in taxation & regulation are helping to aid the favorable investment environment in the region
How existing & new entrants in the data center space going to help optimize the new subsea networks in the North Atlantic

Mr. Hilliard has proven his thought leadership and expertise as a speaker for several high profile industry conferences this year, including ICPC in San Diego. There, he discussed the need for operational independence among firms in all verticals. “OTTs and content providers have cracked the code by switching the script and building custom infrastructure. This ownership affords the firms consistency, as well as independence. There are no reasons why other large enterprises that are dependent upon applications being available could not do the same,” comments Mr. Hilliard.

A key component of this growth will be a new model for cable landing stations. A cable landing station campus, with a fully integrated data center, can do what traditional carrier incumbents have been doing for decades, controlling their networks in a wholesale environment, with no backhaul required, low latency and better access to connectivity.

It is crucial to have clarity in global connectivity. In order to do that, there are now multiple terrestrial options to the CLS and then multiple subsea networks to route across oceans with diverse landings in the next continent. Clarity, operational independence and direct access to subsea capacity whether intercontinental or up and down the coast is the best option.

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About NJFX:

NJFX Enables True Diversity to LATAM Markets in Partnership with Neutrona Networks

Newsroom / NJFX

NJFX Enables True Diversity to LATAM Markets in Partnership with Neutrona Networks

New Point of Presence Bypasses Miami and Offers Direct Route From NJ to South America

June 25, 2019

Wall Township, NJ – NJFX, the only Cable Landing Station (CLS) colocation campus in the U.S offering, Tier 3, carrier-neutral data center capabilities, announces a Point of Presence (PoP) at its facility by Neutrona Networks, a leading managed network service provider, bringing a greater experience of connectivity to Latin America (LATAM). With partners like Neutrona Networks, NJFX is quickly becoming the alternate LATAM hub. This PoP will further reinforce the idea of true diversity, by providing options that bypass the congested Florida region in route to LATAM.

“By being a part of the NJFX ecosystem, we are able to extend our connectivity solutions for Latin America, as well as the Caribbean,” comments Luciano Salata, president and co-founder of Neutrona Networks. “This is especially important for financial firms as well as enterprises who are looking for managed connectivity to public clouds and can easily leverage our SDN-ready network. We are proud to be a part of the innovative spirit NJFX has created by enabling real solutions and innovative approaches with its partners.”

“Neutrona Networks is a valuable partner for NJFX because they are the true leaders in the LATAM market. Using every available asset, including carrier networks and subsea cables, Neutrona has integrated a secure wide area network (WAN) for the region,” states Felix Seda, General Manager for NJFX. “The new PoP at NJFX reinforces the idea that true diversity is crucial in the era of Digital Transformation & Cloud Adoption. NJFX has established itself as that center hub to offer diversity to key partners like Neutrona Networks.”

Neutrona Networks is a Software Defined Digital Provider (SDDP) with 20 years of experience in the Americas’ region. Its network is built on top of every submarine cable system and terrestrial fiber rings in LATAM, monitored and managed by its own SDN solution. It has a direct presence in more than 15 countries, offering access to every city throughout LATAM region via its extensive network of interconnections with local ISPs and direct connectivity to the main Cloud Service Providers, such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle Cloud, IBM Cloud, among others.

NJFX’s CLS campus offers access to five subsea cable systems, including Havfrue/AEC2, which connects the US at the NJFX CLS to Northern Europe and the Seabras cable providing direct access to Brazil. In addition, through strategic partners such as Neutrona Networks, NJFX customers can access points of presence in 15 countries in Central and South America, Mexico and the Caribbean.

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About NJFX:

BULK INFRASTRUCTURE ANNOUNCES THE NORDIC GATEWAY

Newsroom / NJFX

BULK INFRASTRUCTURE ANNOUNCES THE NORDIC GATEWAY

An enterprise on-ramp to the fiber network unlocking Nordic sustainable internet and cloud infrastructure

See the original Article at Bulk‘s website

June 24, 2019

Atlanta, GA – June 24, 2019. Bulk Infrastructure AS, a leading provider of sustainable digital infrastructure in the Nordics, is pleased to announce the Nordic Gateway at the ITW (International Telecoms Week) in Georgia (US) this week.

“Bulk Infrastructure is committed to enable the great potential that the Nordic region has to offer as an attractive platform for cost efficient and sustainable digital services,” states Peder Naerboe, Owner and Chairman at Bulk Infrastructure AS.
Therefore, we introduce The Nordic Gateway, an on-ramp solution accessing fiber networks that unlocks the sustainable Nordic region´s natural resources.

The Nordic Gateway is the on-ramp solution into the Havfrue Cable System, stretching 7,200 kilometers from New Jersey to the Nordic countries of Denmark and Norway. With Bulk`s exclusive ownership to the Norwegian branch of the cable system, Bulk controls six routes in the system between the USA, Ireland, Denmark and Norway.

“We believe The Nordic Gateway unlocks one of the few genuinely sustainable solutions in the data center industry today. With this solution, the data center industry can utilize 100% pure emissions-free hydropower from the Nordic countries,” says Naerboe.

Bulk has chosen NJFX in Wall as the US on-ramp location for the Nordic Gateway.

“We recognize NJFX as a model for an evolved cable landing station, with both direct access to subsea systems and data center capabilities at the landing point,” says Naerboe.

The Havfrue cable system is the first to cross the North-Atlantic Ocean in more than two decades and will enable significant inter-regional capacity and connectivity between the U.S. and Europe.

The Nordic region is optimally geographically positioned. Here, we have short distances to key European markets, abundant renewable hydropower supply and the lowest electricity prices in Europe. In addition, the Nordics has one of the World´s highest levels of redundancy and resilience in the power grid. I believe all these things together, topped with political stability and low temperature are reasons why the Nordics is now chosen as a sustainable power hub.

The HAVRUE subsea cable system is expected to be fully operational in Q4 2019, while Bulk data center solutions are already in place proximate to the landing points in Norway and Denmark.

About Bulk Infrastructure AS

Bulk Infrastructure is a leading provider of sustainable digital infrastructure in the Nordics. Bulk is a privately-owned industrial investor, developer and operator of industrial real estate, data centers and dark fiber networks. Bulk believes in the value creation opportunity of enabling the digital society to be fully sustainable. Its ambition is to be the go-to provider for anyone that wants to leverage the Nordics for data processing requirements of the future, whether in Denmark, Sweden or Norway. Bulk’s track record of delivering high quality and cost-effective customer solutions with short “time to market” has made Bulk ranked #1 in the Nordics as a regional industrial real estate developer. Hence Bulk’s vision: Racing to bring sustainable infrastructure to a global audience.

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About NJFX:

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NJFX Announces New Inter-Continental WAN Capabilities at WAN Summit 2019

Newsroom / NJFX

NJFX Announces New Inter-Continental WAN Capabilities at WAN Summit 2019

global WANs today extend through CLS locations such as NJFX and provide the same operational independence and certainty across network architectures.

April 8, 2019

Wall, NJ – April 8, 2019 – NJFX, the only Cable Landing Station (CLS) colocation campus in the U.S offering, Tier 3, carrier-neutral data center capabilities, announces new intercontinental wide area network (WAN) capabilities between North America, South America and Europe through its many partners including Bulk Infrastructure and Neutrona Networks. NJFX will showcase its WAN infrastructure capabilities during the Capacity Media and Telegeography WAN Summit, to be held April 8-9, 2019 in New York City.

Conceived 20 years ago to connect geographically distributed private networks with local area networks, global WANs today extend through CLS locations such as NJFX and provide the same operational independence and certainty across network architectures. NJFX’s CLS campus offers access to five subsea cable systems, including Havfrue, part of a consortium including Bulk Infrastructure, which connects the US at the NJFX CLS to Northern Europe. In addition, through strategic partners such as Neutrona Networks, a leading technology solutions provider, NJFX customers can access points of presence in 15 countries in Central and South America, Mexico and the Caribbean.

“NJFX started the revolution in the subsea industry with our carrier-neutral Tier 3 by the Subsea model,” comments Roy Hilliard, VP of Business Development for NJFX. “We can be sure the next wave of technological advancement will be just as compelling with the onset of the Enterprise Revolution, which takes the WAN model and extends it into other continents through our unique CLS campus. All of these dynamics will spur the evolution forward and enable further operational independence for enterprises and financial firms.”

“The industry is changing rapidly with cloud and content providers creating new models of network architecture to achieve economies of scale, reliability and greater network resiliency,” comments Peder Nærbø, CEO for Bulk Infrastructure. “This is evident in our recent deal with Amazon Web Services to allow it to use our portion of the Havfrue subsea cable. As such, we value our work with NJFX as it has established itself as an innovative on/off ramp to global networks.”

“By being a part of the NJFX ecosystem, we are able to extend the WAN to Latin America, as well as the Caribbean,” comments Luciano Salata, President and Co-Founder of Neutrona Networks. “This is especially important for financial firms as well as enterprises who are looking for managed connectivity to public clouds and can easily leverage our SDN-ready network. We are proud to be a part of the innovative spirit NJFX has created by enabling real solutions and innovative approaches with its partners.”

In addition, Roy Hilliard, VP of Business Development for NJFX will present at the WAN Summit on April 9^tha use case presentation with banking industry leader Jim Cataudella entitled, “Operational Independence – Rethinking Network Architecture and Ownership.” The case study takes a closer look at the challenges faced by enterprises and financials today on the U.S. east coast and the innovative solutions that are critical for the industry to consider in achieving operational independence.

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About NJFX:

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NJFX Enables True Diversity to LATAM Markets in Partnership with Neutrona Networks

BULK INFRASTRUCTURE ANNOUNCES THE NORDIC GATEWAY

NJFX Announces New Inter-Continental WAN Capabilities at WAN Summit 2019