NJFX Blog

Happy Holidays from NJFX!

Leaning into 2020, Looking Back at 2019

December 19, 2019

We cannot let this decade come to a close without highlighting a year of significant accomplishments that would not be possible without our amazing partners and customers. We are so thankful for all those who trust and rely on us to deliver a highly reliable, innovative ecosystem along with the secure infrastructure to support their networks.

One of the most exciting developments for NJFX this year, was the announcement of the Nordic Gateway, Bulk’s 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.

Other milestones include Neutrona Networks establishing of a Point of Presence (PoP) at NJFX. Neutrona Networks is a leading managed network service provider. The PoP brings a greater experience of connectivity to Latin America (LATAM).

Our ecosystem grew in other ways this year with the Telia Carrier deployment of a PoP delivering multi-terabit capacity. The new network infrastructure provides resilient network options for customers wanting diverse connectivity throughout North America.

NetIX, a Europe-based carrier class Ethernet exchange, established its first entry into the U.S. market via a PoP at NJFX. The NetIX network currently connects 20+ IXPs, serves more than 100 members, reaches nearly 5000 direct peers in 28 data centers and delivers close to 500 Gbps of traffic.

NJFX executives have proven their thought leadership and expertise to become key speakers at several high-profile industry events. Founder and CEO Gil Santaliz is honored to be a part of the Submarine Networks EMEA 2020 Advisory Board, as well as the Pacific Telecommunications Council (PTC) Advisory Board.

Next stop for Santaliz and the NJFX team is Honolulu, Hawaii for PTC 2020, where Santaliz will speak on the panel, “Data Centers and Networks on the (Cutting) Edge.” NJFX has been shortlisted for an award in the category “Outstanding Cloud, Data Center, or Interconnection Company.”

And lastly, NJFX has a new team member. Sarah Kurtz serves as Sales Support Manager. As a digital native, Kurtz brings a fresh perspective to the industry and the desire to excel in an industry that enables all of the technology she’s grown up with.

In the coming year, Santaliz will continue its focus on growing New Jersey’s digital economy, with a planned campus expansion that will allow for more data center capacity. This, in part, will allow New Jersey to compete with leading data center locations like Ashburn, VA, where tax incentives have brought a significant tech economy to the region.

NJFX is smashing the model of a CLS being a quiet place that is seldom visited. The CLS can no longer be a passive location serving one purpose. It must be more than just a landing point that allows connection to a faraway hub for carriers. Today, NJFX serves as a landing point that is hub itself, bringing unprecedented capacity and connectivity to North America, South America, Europe and the Caribbean. We are proud to close the books on a successful 2019 and look ahead to 2020 with robust ecosystem of partners, carriers and customers. Happy Holidays!

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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.

The Future of Subsea Connectivity lies in the Collaboration

NJFX Blog / iddxwcva

The Future of Subsea Connectivity lies in the Collaboration

December 12, 2019

The state of subsea was the main focus at Subsea Americas 2019 conference in Washington, DC this week. And the consensus was that that the state of subsea is currently in flux. Subsea is changing rapidly, to accommodate the exponential increases in capacity demands the industry will soon see, and in many cases is already seeing. With many cables reaching their end of life and at least one to be decommissioned in the very near future, the spotlight is on next-generation connectivity, what shape that takes and what players are involved.

One highlight of the event was a panel entitled, “Changing Dynamics of U.S. East Coast Network Architectures.” NJFX Founder and CEO Gil Santaliz served as the moderator, with insight from panelists Jim Cataudella, SVP, Network Platform & Critical Infrastructure Engineering for Bank of America, Ivo Pascucci, VP, Telia Carrier, Paul Scott, CEO, Confluence Networks and Joe Scattareggia, EVP, Wholesale, Windstream Wholesale.

While there are many viewpoints and perspectives, all of the panelists agreed that one thing is clear: The old model of the Cable Landing Station (CLS) as a passive, pass through location is no more. Carriers, cable system operators and others are realizing that the CLS must now be a hub with a rich and diverse ecosystem.

“The old model is not necessarily something we want to invest in,” says Ivo Pascucci, VP, Telia Carrier.

“For us, we see a lot of opportunities along the eastern seaboard. What we’ve found is that selling something one-off is a transaction, but when partnering with cable system operators, who compliment each other, bring together fiber assets on both sides of the Atlantic, plus the wet portion, that brings great, long-term value for us and our customers.” Pascucci says the model that NJFX has promoted is beginning to be mimicked more and more in places like Virginia Beach, VA and Jacksonville, FL.

Joe Scattareggia EVP, Wholesale, Windstream Wholesale, agrees, adding: “What used to be a passthrough today is an ecosystem. You’ve got cables landing, cloud services, carriers providing backhaul and internet provider presence. We look at these partnerships, what opportunities best offer us potential to sell our services.” Windstream Wholesale recently took a significant step in bridging those CLS ecosystems, by creating the first-ever CLS-to-CLS terrestrial route between Virginia Beach, VA and NJFX in Wall Township, NJ.

Santaliz asked panelists what it would take for enterprises to truly understand the vulnerability of their routes. Jim Cataudella, SVP, Network Platform & Critical Infrastructure Engineering for Bank of America answered, “At Bank of America we know there is a change of life coming, we are planning for the upcoming decommissioning of a cable. When we look at terrestrial maintenance, we are seeing things like a 400% increase in dual carrier outages, planned or unplanned. At one time, enterprises were covered with two paths. Today four routes have become the norm.” Cataudella adds it critical not only for Bank of America, but all banks in today’s global economy. Bank of America has operational excellence with a zero tolerance for customer facing outages. “The benefit of being at a CLS hub is that it brings us closer to the subsea edge. Having a multi-service CLS, with carrier neutrality, and making it a one stop shop with IP access, peering for cloud providers and high capacity internet is very attractive.”

The final step in creating a diverse north-south route on the East Coast comes from Confluence Networks. Paul Scott, CEO, announced CONFLUENCE-1, the first subsea cable connecting several CLSs along the Atlantic Coast. “This won’t solve it all, but it will provide solutions to latency, scalability and national security that we believe really enriches the architecture on many levels. A cable with 16 fiber pairs and 300 terabits of capacity is a very compelling business case.” He adds that the next step is to bring enterprise customers into the community, to provide direct connectivity at the cable landing site.

The changing landscape, indeed SEAscape, brings an exciting shift for the entire subsea and terrestrial ecosystem. Hubs like NJFX will increase, bringing a new level of secure, diverse, high capacity connectivity. The leadership at NJFX looks forward to playing a key role in the evolution. You can next find the team at PTC 2020 in Honolulu, HI, January 19-22, where CEO Gil Sanatliz will participate on a panel entitled, “Data Centers and Networks on the (Cutting) Edge”. To book a meeting, email [email protected].

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About NJFX:

Terra Firma: Why Terrestrial Connectivity Matters to the Cable Landing Station

NJFX Blog / Sarah Kurtz

Terra Firma: Why Terrestrial Connectivity Matters to the Cable Landing Station

By Gil Santaliz, CEO, NJFX

December 3, 2019

The Cable Landing Station (CLS) colocation is where the networks live today. As an example, consider the petabytes per second being transported across the Atlantic Ocean into the U.S from Europe and South America – physically coming in through subsea cables. This traffic needs a home and the CLS enables carriers to provide the diverse private ‘roads’ to carry that data. Carrier-neutral subsea capabilities empower customers with options when choosing which cables will transport their data to key landing points. When a colocation data center campus is physically located at the meeting point of multiple subsea cable landings linking three continents, international connectivity is just a single cross-connect away. The result is a high-resilience, low-latency network with direct interconnection options for service providers, enterprises, carrier-neutral operators and cable companies. Customers can further diversify and plan their international connections with clarity and accuracy, eliminating any transport uncertainty.

Moreover, when a number of subsea cables land directly at a CLS colocation campus, this enables enterprise, content, financials, media, government, and communications providers to have maximized redundancy, reduced latency and better quality connections with fewer international points of failure, fortifying the protection of their international data traffic. Meanwhile, network operators, by establishing a Point of Presence (PoP) at a CLS colocation campus, can design reliable architecture with diversity to other PoPs around the globe, once again with fewer points of failure and better service quality as well as lower operational costs.

As an example, NJFX serves as a Tier 3 Global Network Operations Center (G-NOC) on the U.S. east coast. Data traffic comes into NJFX through subsea cables and then is interconnected across the U.S. via terrestrial networks and ultimately to end-users. Consider NJFX as the North American distribution center for data dissemination into and across North America. The NJFX community of carriers make its CLS a marketplace rich with fiber networks and platforms – providing multiple options for routes, security and diversity.

“The increased connectivity from Crown Castle gives national enterprises and content providers an opportunity to use one of the largest, densest fiber networks in the country to securely and reliably transfer their mission-critical data.” – Jim Young, COO, Crown Castle

There are hundreds of thousands of miles of subsea cables traversing the globe with over 90% of the world’s international data transmitted across them. It is critical to global communications to eliminate unnecessary points of failure and shore up potential for security breaches.

“The new breed of cable landing station has become a critical infrastructure in facilitating reliable and secure interconnection. By having a PoP at NJFX’s CLS colocation campus, Epsilon is enabling service providers and enterprises to interconnect data centres, cloud services and internet exchanges on our network fabric across global economic hubs. The combination of software-defined networking platform and CLS delivers global connectivity at scale with greater performance and visibility.” – Jerzy Szlosarek, CEO, Epsilon

Make no mistake, the modern CLS colocation campus is indeed a very rare breed, and there are very few such facilities in the world. However, the direct connectivity that supports customer diversity requirements shouldn’t be limited to just multiple subsea cable access capability. Rather, it’s also the availability of access to multiple backhaul providers for direct and diverse connectivity to core markets — in the U.S., to Ashburn, Chicago, Dallas, North Carolina, Philadelphia, and other cities, thereby bypassing common points of network failure such as New York, Northern New Jersey, and Miami — which truly distinguishes the CLS colocation campus of the future.

This new model represents a paradigm shift from the traditional approach of providing fiber backhaul to the nearest metro area hub. In the modern CLS model, it’s the cable landing station campus that is the de facto hub, providing better access to connectivity, low latency and high capacity. Legacy carrier hotels that are located further inland on Long Island and in lower Manhattan aren’t capable of providing the infrastructure model that can provide interconnection to 300 terabits or more.

Secure Connectivity From Seabed to Dry Land

The carrier-neutral colocation hub at the subsea cable landing with diverse terrestrial connectivity options is the way of the future. Traditionally, it’s the role of the CLS to transition data transported by the subsea cable to a terrestrial network, which then provides connectivity to a major population center. Typically, the terrestrial system has two routes available to the hub, a redundancy of design to ensure uptime in the event that one route becomes compromised. Once data reaches the hub, it’s transported to various destinations across the North American continent, or beyond.

But to be a true CLS colocation hub, the availability of multiple terrestrial routes is as essential as multiple subsea cable system options, and here, there is a critical difference, even between currently operating CLS campuses.

“ZenFi Networks was one of the initial providers to connect to the NJFX CLS campus and we are pleased to offer carriers direct connectivity to over 40 key colocation POP’s throughout the NY and NJ metro region. Our purpose-built fiber route out of the campus offers diversity from other providers, and delivers latency-sensitive, secure backhaul options for carriers and their customers.” –Vincenzo Clemente, President and Chief Operating Officer, ZenFi Networks

It’s not conducive to uptime and performance if a high capacity cable system lands at a site only to be stranded with just one or two backhaul options, as is the case with some CLS campuses. On the contrary, it’s access to multiple backhaul routes that creates truly diverse options, which in turn fosters reliability, availability and security of data transport – a critical requirement for financial services, healthcare organizations and other enterprises, as well as carriers, content providers and government agencies, which depend upon maximum uptime.

For one out of three enterprises, a single hour of downtime can cost anywhere from $1 million to $5 million, according to a recent Gartner survey. In fact, network outages experienced by North American organizations alone result in revenue losses of $700 billion per year, so claims a report by IHS Inc. (NYSE: IHS).

But aside from the financial stakes, there are potential reputational repercussions when an organization’s network goes down: loss of customer trust and brand equity. A CLS colocation campus like NJFX that also operates a G-NOC offers many unique U.S. fiber backhaul solutions, avoiding traditional legacy network points of failure. This not only maximizes network redundancy and resiliency, but can also improve service quality, reduce expenses and help drive new revenue. As a G-NOC, it can also provide hands-on, operations and engineering support within quick turn-around timeframes, which offers a lot of value to providers who need specialized support.

As bandwidth demands continue to spike upward — the Cisco Visual Networking Index predicts that annual global IP traffic will reach 3.3 ZB per year by 2021, a three-fold increase from two years ago — new subsea cables and expansions of existing networks will become necessary, and not just linking major global hubs but second tier, emerging and underserved markets as well. Subsea cables are the information superhighways of the global economy. But once that data reaches shore, it has to arrive on terra firma — solid ground — at a physically secure and hardened CLS colocation campus, with multiple backhaul options, to ensure that data safely make its way to its ultimate terrestrial destination.

“Windstream wholesale continues to strategically invest and partner with CLS and data centers in order to extend its expansive long-haul network to the ultra-high capacity subsea operators. Our domestic and international customers need providers that are flexible and offer networks capable of growing ahead of them, not just with them. We’ve established a reputation for being that provider that offers diversity and customized routes through our uniquely dense domestic US network.” – Joe Scattareggia, EVP, Windstream Wholesale

The CLS hub of tomorrow will not only offer access to subsea cable systems, but also provide the terrestrial backhaul needed to get beyond the landing point and out into the hands of the companies delivering the data, provide faster on-ramps to cloud infrastructure and power communications more reliably. Now that’s solid ground.

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About NJFX:

NJFX Hires Sarah Kurtz as Sales Support Manager, Bringing a Fresh, Female Perspective to Industry

NJFX Blog / Sarah Kurtz

NJFX Hires Sarah Kurtz as Sales Support Manager, Bringing a Fresh, Female Perspective to Industry

November 26, 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 naming Sarah Kurtz to serve as Sales Support Manager. As a recent college graduate and former NJFX intern, Sarah has come of age in the internet era, where technology, IoT devices and smartphones are ever present. This provides Ms. Kurtz a unique perspective of the industry and a smart approach to working with clients. The leadership at NJFX is excited to usher Ms. Kurtz into the dynamic subsea industry and build a powerful foundation for her and other young women in the infrastructure space.

Ms. Kurtz, born and raised in Sea Girt, New Jersey, graduated from Fairfield University in Connecticut with a degree in Computer Science. She credits her studies with sparking her interest in the technology field and led to an internship with NJFX, which expanded that interest to the telecommunications industry. After graduation, she spent a year as a software developer for Verizon. It was then that NJFX Founder and CEO Gil Santaliz reached out to offer Ms. Kurtz the position of Sales Support Manager.

“Sarah brings a lot to the table as a young woman entering the telecom field. We are looking forward to having a fresh perspective, not only for us, but also for the industry,” says Felix Seda, General Manager of NJFX, “She is eager to soak up as much as she can, as quickly as she can and we’re excited to have her on our team as we look to 2020 and beyond.”

The move from working on software to hardware has proven to be an exciting one for Ms. Kurtz. “In software development, it was just me and my computer. But in subsea there is so much more emphasis on networking and learning from others.” The fast pace of her work has also proven to be a big draw, with Ms. Kurtz citing this as an area of opportunity for young people aspiring to join the industry. “I find that people of my generation are hungry for knowledge about the technology they have grown up with. They are ready and willing to learn. That directly correlates with the vast amount of information about this industry,” she comments adding, “Learning quickly and keeping up with the pace of the ever-advancing technology is something my generation is well equipped for.”

“Being a young woman often makes me a minority in the room. But I have found this to be a big motivator rather than a challenge. It just makes me eager to learn quickly and stand out as a leader, ” Ms. Kurtz says about being in a male-dominated field, “It really lights a fire in me to work harder.” She has also had the opportunity to travel often with NJFX and meet with many prominent women in tech and telecom, and she uses these opportunities to develop professional and personal relationships.

“Sarah, being a digital native, represents everything this industry needs, and I am looking forward to seeing more of her in the future,” remarks Merete Caubet, Vice President of Sales & Business Development of NJFX partner, Bulk Infrastructure. “Creating diversity within our industry has been a big initiative lately, with industry events’ hosting sessions focused on bringing the women of tech and telecom together and pre-professional programs for college students, so it is really exciting to see these initiatives paying off. We congratulate NJFX on such a successful recruitment to the team.”

You can find Ms. Kurtz at Subsea Americas, December 10-12, in Washington, DC. The event will feature an interactive workshop called the “Women in Subsea Initiative” tasked to create an environment that encourages knowledge sharing, promotes diversity, and encourages a trading of skills. In addition, NJFX is a Silver sponsor of the event. For more information, visit www.njfx.net or contact [email protected] to set up a meeting.

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About NJFX:

NJFX Marks its Third Anniversary as a True CLS Connectivity Hub

NJFX Blog / iddxwcva

NJFX Marks its Third Anniversary as a True CLS Connectivity Hub

Disrupting the Industry as the New Model for Subsea Connectivity

September 25, 2019

Wall Twp., NJ – When NJFX broke ground in September 2015, Founder and CEO Gil Santaliz had a vision to create connectivity in a neutral environment at the cable landing station where competition could be fostered to benefit customers and collaboration could occur to increase connectivity and diversity for all. Today, that vision has been fully realized, just three years after celebrating the NJFX grand opening with racing legend Mario Andretti, and Super Bowl XXV MVP O.J. Anderson and Steven Baker “The Touchdown Maker” for the pre-party golf outing to kick off the inception of this truly unique facility.

NJFX has experienced unprecedented growth since its 2016 grand opening, securing its position as major a hub of connectivity for North America and beyond. NJFX is the only Cable Landing Station (CLS) colocation campus in the U.S offering Tier 3 carrier-neutral data center capabilities. Positioned at the eastern edge of North America, NJFX’s 64,800 square foot facility is strategically located 64 ft above sea level in a Category-5 hurricane resistant building. This location currently provides direct access to three unique subsea cable systems bypassing congested legacy routes in New York City and Miami, while interconnecting North America, South America and Europe. By the end of the year, a fourth cable system will be online, bridging NJFX to the Nordic Gateway. NJFX will serve as an on-ramp solution into the Havfrue Cable System which stretches 7,200 kilometers from New Jersey to Ireland, Denmark and Norway. This cable system unlocks one of the few genuinely sustainable solutions in the data center industry today.

The site also houses seven independent U.S. fiber backhaul routes. This combined connectivity has made NJFX an industry leading, carrier neutral colocation facility that has not been replicated elsewhere on the Eastern seaboard.

NJFX 2016 Grand Opening

Another part of NJFX’s core mission is a focus on conscious capitalism. While NJFX relies on developing a profitable business, it has not taken on any outside debt and has made the decision to remain solvent long-term to provide infrastructure in a sustainable way. As demonstrated during a summit for multinational banks hosted at NJFX earlier this year, bank leadership teams have an appreciation of this mindset. They cannot provide their services without having credible partners in place who take instilling trust seriously and deliver upon it. Financial institutions count on reliable partners who have fairness and equity as part of their core tenets. NJFX’s customers and partners are provided opportunities to grow their business by leveraging global relationships, while operating in complete transparency. Santaliz has realized in today’s market if there is no balance between profit and the responsibility to vendors, employees and customers, long term business growth is difficult.

NJFX executives have proven their thought leadership and expertise through key speaking engagements at several high-profile industry events such as PTC, ICPC, Capacity Media and Submarine Networks EMEA. NJFX founder and CEO, Gil Santaliz, is honored to be a part of the Submarine Networks EMEA 2020 Advisory Board, as well as the Pacific Telecommunications Council (PTC) Advisory Board. The company has earned several awards and recognition which highlight the company’s most recent achievements, including:

Shortlisted for Capacity’s 2019 Global Carrier Award: Best Data Centre Innovation
Honored by the Tilt-Up Concrete Association (TCA) for construction excellence.
Awarded as the Best Global Connectivity Solution by TMT’s Global Excellence Program for its Cable Landing Station (CLS) campus ecosystem
Recognition of NJFX Founder and CEO Gil Santaliz in Capacity Media’s Power 100, the first ever listing of 100 of the most influential men and women in the wholesale telecommunications industry.
Awarded Capacity Media’s Best North American Project 2018 for its facility expansion.
Certified as a HIPAA compliant facility, allowing for secure health data to be stored and/or transmitted.

In the coming months and years, Santaliz and NJFX will continue to focus on cultivating New Jersey’s digital economy with a planned campus expansion that will allow for more data center capacity. This, in part, will allow New Jersey to compete with leading data center locations like Ashburn, VA, where tax incentives have brought a significant tech economy to the region.

NJFX is smashing the model of a CLS as being a quiet place that is seldom visited. The CLS can no longer be a passive location serving a singular purpose, it must be more than just a landing point that provides connection to a faraway hub for carriers. Today, NJFX serves as a landing point that is the hub itself, bringing unprecedented capacity and connectivity to North America, South America, Europe and the Caribbean. The company is proud to celebrate its three-year anniversary with its robust ecosystem of partners, carriers, customers. Here’s to an even bigger year ahead!

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About NJFX:

NJFX Founder & CEO Gil Santaliz to Offer Insights for Subsea Projects Panel at Capacity Europe 2019

NJFX Blog / iddxwcva

NJFX Founder & CEO Gil Santaliz to Offer Insights for Subsea Projects Panel at Capacity Europe 2019

NJFX CEO Monderate Facebook, Telxius, Bulk Infrastructure and TI Sparkle on Risks, Challenges, and Best Practices in our industry

September 10, 2019

Wall Township, NJ – NJFX Founder and CEO Gil Santaliz will offer his expertise and lead a panel discussion at Capacity Europe on Wednesday, October 30th. The panel, entitled “Subsea Projects 101 – Risks, Challenges, and Best Practices”, also features Ricardo Orcero of Facebook, Monica Martinez of Telxius, Rob Bath representing Bulk Infrastructure, and Federico Porri of TI Sparkle Americas.

The panelists will discuss their predictions for the subsea landscape in the next two years, including best practices for new projects and how the industry can best collaborate older systems and assets with new installations. The discussion will be presented in a case study manner and will cover:

Today’s Subsea landscape & predictions for the next 12 to 24 months
Architecting new systems for the future from branching unit selection, back haul, to landing points/ parties & partners. Best practices on getting it right.
Coordination & Collaboration between the older system with assets & the new systems. Does it happen? How much can be repurposed?
How does the transition take place for customers from retiring systems to the new cables? What can we expect when all the new capacity goes online?
Aside from the OTT’s who might we expect to drive future demand? Research, Media, Government, Financial or who?

Mr. Santaliz will be providing valuable insights regarding the subsea industry, as NJFX has been closely involved in a number of recent subsea cable projects and can provide the perspective of role the Cable Landing Station (CLS) in connectivity and supporting infrastructure. To learn more about why the CLS matters, check out our recent blog post on the topic.

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About NJFX:

WHY THE CABLE LANDING STATION MATTERS

NJFX Blog / iddxwcva

WHY THE CABLE LANDING STATION MATTERS

Creating Unprecedented Connectivity with a Robust Ecosystem

September 4, 2019

Traditionally quiet places that are seldom visited, the Cable Landing Station (CLS) is supposed to serve one purpose: a point where several hundred million dollars’ worth of subsea cable projects, representing more than 90% of the world’s internet traffic, convert to a terrestrial cable that then provides connectivity to major population centers. Normally, this traditional terrestrial cable has two routes to ensure uptime to the hub, designed that way in case one is compromised. Once it reaches the hub, it fans across an entire continent. That concept worked for decades. But today’s CLS can no longer be a passive location. It must be more than just a landing point that allows connection to a faraway hub for carriers. Today, we are building cable landing station campuses that ARE the hub itself.

The genesis of this new concept comes from the OTTs. When downtime is not an option and microseconds count, OTTs use this concept to avoid points of failure to reach their hyperscale data centers. Enterprise companies also appreciate this concept because they want 100% uptime. A Cable Landing Station campus, with a fully integrated Tier 3 colocation, can do what traditional carrier incumbents and Carrier Hotels have been doing for decades, controlling their networks in a wholesale environment, with no backhaul required, along with providing low latency and better access to connectivity globally.

Today, there are just a few unique places on the planet with direct CLS access to both multiple subsea cables and multiple backhaul routes. One is in Marseille, France. Another is NJFX at the Jersey Shore, which is rivaling Marseille in terms of the number of subsea and backhaul routes.

Because of its location on the edge of domestic and international networks and subsea cables, NJFX enables enterprises, financials and carriers to utilize direct routing, eliminate single points of failure and avoid typical network congestion points.

“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 thrilled to be a part of the innovative spirit NJFX has created by enabling real solutions and innovative approaches with its partners.”

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. The availability of multiple routes both subsea and terrestrial is crucial to become a true CLS hub. A cable system cannot land at a site and be stranded with one backhaul provided. Multiple backhaul routes create truly diverse options, which in turn can allow both for collaboration, as well as competition. If one carrier is not providing necessary interconnection, with a robust ecosystem, there are half a dozen other choices.

A hub at the site of the CLS eliminates backhaul that can often cause connectivity issues. For example, a manhole fire in a city the data was never meant to visit or network regrooming on lit services due to the carrier dealing with other network issues related to outages. These scenarios are no longer acceptable. Clarity, operational independence and direct access to subsea capacity whether intercontinental or up and down the coast are the best options. Enterprises and OTTs should always know how the data flows 100% of the time.

“The carrier-neutral model at the cable hub itself is the way to move forward, in my opinion. NJFX is one of the few leaders globally with this new model of connectivity at the cable landing site. On the Nordic side, we have built the same neutrality so carriers can interconnect freely,” states Peder Naerbo, Bulk Infrastructure. “In addition to that, data center colocation facilities are very suited to being at the cable landing points as opposed to further inland. As part of the Havfrue subsea cable consortium, Bulk Infrastructure, this year, announced the launch of the Nordic Gateway at the NJFX CLS. This on-ramp solution accessing high capacity fiber networks unlocks the Nordic’s ample supply of sustainable energy, for the data center industry and bringing expanded capabilities from Northern Europe into the US.”

Legacy carrier hotels on Long Island, New Jersey and in lower Manhattan are not capable of providing this type of infrastructure model that provides interconnection to over 500 terabits of Subsea Connectivity. The NJFX Tier 3 carrier-neutral colocation campus located at the CLS does something that no other facility can: provide a viable alternative for carriers and large organizations to design resilient network architectures at a secure location and further ensure global networks stay operational.

Positioned at the easternmost edge of North America, NJFX’s HIPAA-compliant facility is the centerpiece of the very first Cable Landing Station colocation campus in North America. This location provides direct access to four unique subsea cable systems bypassing New York City and Miami, interconnecting North America, South America and Europe. Having a leading carrier-neutral colocation facility at the cable landing site has not been replicated elsewhere on the Eastern seaboard where cables land.

When the latest upgrade of cable systems was completed nearly 20 years ago, smartphones barely existed. It is important for bandwidth players to have enough redundancy built across these cable systems to support their massive bandwidth needs.

“Aqua Comms focuses its skills, talent and capital to develop submarine cables, where it often works with other large private users who seek to own modern, high-capacity, trans-oceanic fiber pairs,” states Nigel Bayliff, CEO. Aqua Comms is part of the consortium of the new trans-Atlantic cable system, which traverses the North Atlantic to connect mainland Northern Europe to the U.S. Aqua Comms is the operator and landing party in the U.S., Ireland, and Denmark, where the company will market and sell capacity services and raw spectrum on its portion of the cable system under the brand name America Europe Connect-2 (AEC-2).

NJFX provides additional connectivity options via two campus Meet-Me-Rooms, generating a high-resilience, fully redundant, low-latency network with direct interconnection options for service providers, enterprises, carrier-neutral operators and cable companies. Its colocation customers pay no recurring fees on cross-connects and are provided full access to subsea capacity via four independent cable systems. Cloud access is available via AWS, Oracle, Alibaba Cloud, IBM Cloud, Azure and Google Cloud Partners. Dark fiber is offered by Zayo, Zenfi, Windstream Wholesale and Altice. SDWAN/NFV provides orchestrated flexible networking solutions using services provided by Epsilon, Tata Communications, and more. IP Peering is offered by NetIX, which this year launched in North America at NJFX.

Along with connectivity, security at the cable landing site is key. So much so, that U.S. cable landing sites are now under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security and considered “hardened infrastructure”. According to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the concentration of cable landing sites in very few physical locations and the relative ease in finding documented cable routes and cable termination points could facilitate the targeting of the submarine cable network by bad actors. Security is tight and constantly monitored.

“At NJFX, customers can 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, diverse options for our customers, we are happy to partner with NJFX, a company that provides a very reliable and flexible environment. Such an environment where data center facilities are integrated with a Cable Landing Station is a concept that we have also developed in our Sicily Hub in Italy. This model creates a business environment that enables carriers and customers to save on investment not just in terms of backhaul connectivity but also in terms of equipment needed to light the backhaul capacity.”

NJFX Founder and CEO Gil Santaliz puts it in simple terms. “We facilitate the party, and everyone can come to the party. Our goal is to make sure everyone knows they’ve been invited!”

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About NJFX:

NJFX Secures Position as Major CLS Connectivity Hub

NJFX Blog / NJFX

NJFX Secures Position as Major CLS Connectivity Hub

Marks first half of 2019 with the company’s unprecedented growth, industry recognition and thought leadership

July 26, 2019

NJFX, the only Cable Landing Station (CLS) colocation campus in the U.S offering, Tier 3, carrier-neutral data center capabilities, experienced unprecedented growth in the first half of 2019, securing its position as major a hub of connectivity for North America and beyond. NJFX executives have proven their thought leadership and expertise to become in demand speakers at several high-profile industry events, and have earned awards and recognition that highlight the company’s most recent achievements.NJFX was honored by the Tilt-Up Concrete Association (TCA) for construction excellence. Founded in 1986, TCA is comprised of architects, engineers, suppliers, general contractors, concrete subcontractors, and developers that support site-cast Tilt-Up construction techniques. This is a special construction technique using concrete and is known for energy efficiency, safety, security, durability, expandability, sustainability. NJFX’s highly reliable and secure facility is designed to withstand a Category 5 hurricane and was built using this technique.

TMT’s Global Excellence Program recognized NJFX and presented the company the Best Global Connectivity Solutions award for its Cable Landing Station (CLS) campus ecosystem, which enables enterprises, financials, content providers, media, government, and telecoms to have maximized redundancy, reduced latency, and better quality connections. All with fewer international points of failure – validating the protection of their international traffic.NJFX Founder and CEO Gil Santaliz was recognized as part of Capacity Media’s Power 100, the first ever listing of 100 of the most influential men and women in the wholesale telecommunications industry. Capacity Media’s criteria for landing a spot on the coveted list included those known for being innovators, critical thinkers and agents of change who are continuously pushing the industry forward.

The first part of 2019 also brought lots of activity on the thought leadership front, as NJFX brought expertise to the industry’s premier event, the Pacific Telecommunications Council conference (PTC). Founder and CEO Gil Santaliz presented at the event’s annual “Global Submarine Cable Update”, a highlight of the event, as industry leaders provided the latest on subsea cable projects and regulation around the globe. VP of Business Development Roy Hilliard addressed issues around scalable and agile network infrastructures and how networks can evolve to support and enable IoT adoption and prepare for the coming of 5G.

From Hawaii to London, the next stop for Santaliz was speaking at this year’s Submarine Networks EMEA 2019 event. Santaliz was invited as a member of the keynote panel, entitled ‘Making waves: Emerging strategies & opportunities in the subsea cable industry’. He discussed North America’s vast data center landscape and the massive shift occurring across Atlantic subsea cables, and what happens when those cables reach their economic end of life.

At Capacity Media’s Wan Summit in New York in April, Hilliard presented a use case presentation along with a leader in the banking industry entitled, “Operational Independence – Rethinking Network Architecture and Ownership.” The case study provided 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.Santaliz also brought his expertise to CAPRE’s Eighth Annual Greater New York Data Center & Cloud Infrastructure Summit on April 18th in Times Square. Santaliz spoke on the panel entitled, “Cloud On-Ramps: Finding Data Centers with Connectivity to Major Cloud Providers”. Discussion included the vitality of an on ramp, transparency in data center cloud applications, cloud consolidation and more.

Then it was on to San Diego for Hilliard for the ICPC Conference. This year’s theme was Critical Infrastructure Across the Oceans – Protecting Submarine Cables and the Marine Environment.

Global communications are dependent on subsea infrastructure and today it’s becoming more critical than ever to ensure cables are resilient on every front – seabed, cable landing station level and even how they interconnect with terrestrial fiber backhaul networks. Several additional major milestones also marked the first half of 2019. NJFX achieved its Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) certification.

NJFX is the only Cable Landing Station in North America to earn this certification, demonstrating its continued leadership in the telecommunications industry. This certification reflects the most stringent standards for data centers in the industry and are required for all facilities hosting medical records.NJFX welcomed a Point of Presence (PoP) for NetIX, a Europe-based carrier class Ethernet exchange. This is the first entry into the U.S. market by NetIX. The company was recently recognized at Capacity’s Global Carrier Awards as “Best Internet Exchange”, confirming the marketplace’s trust in the company’s platform. Neutrona Networks also secured a PoP at NJFX. Neutrona is a leading managed network service provider. This PoP brings a greater experience of connectivity to Latin America (LATAM). With partners like Neutrona Networks, NJFX is quickly becoming the alternate LATAM hub, providing options that bypass the congested Florida region in route to LATAM.

At ITW in Atlanta, Bulk Infrastructure announced the Nordic Gateway, originating from NJFX. The Nordic Gateway is the on-ramp solution into the Havfrue Cable System, Bulk Infrastructurestretching 7,200 kilometers from New Jersey to 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.

Bulk’s 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.

Bulk has chosen NJFX in Wall, NJ as the US on-ramp location for the Nordic Gateway.For a bit of fun all in the name of a good cause, NJFX participated in the Hoboken Angelwish Wiffleball Classic to benefit an organization that helps bring joy to children living with chronic illnesses by allowing individuals to grant holiday and birthday gifts online. “NJFX takes great pride in being able to contribute to causes like Angelwish; we feel that giving back to the community that you live and work in is paramount. At NJFX, corporate social responsibility is something that is held to a great degree of importance,” comments Santaliz. “In addition to consciously participating in charities, fundraisers, and local events, we are transparent in our business practices.

We think it all adds up to ensuring the company will remain in high regard with employees, customers and the community.” With NJFX’s thought leadership on strengthening network resiliency, prioritizing network diversity and providing accessible connectivity with international subsea cable systems, the company is on the forefront of a transparent solution for carriers and customers alike. All of this is uniquely available in a carrier-neutral setting that is strategically positioned 64 feet above sea level in a Tier III, secure facility on the Jersey Shore. Stay tuned for more major developments ahead!

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About NJFX:

NJFX Plays Ball for a Great Cause

NJFX Blog / NJFX

NJFX Plays Ball for a Great Cause

Great day to bring out your inner child for a great cause

June 14, 2019

NJFX, the only Cable Landing Station (CLS) colocation campus in the U.S offering, Tier 3, carrier-neutral data center capabilities, participated in a wiffleball tournament with charity organization Angelwish today, Friday June 14th. Angelwish helps bring joy to children living with chronic illnesses by allowing individuals to grant holiday and birthday gifts online and guarantees that 100% of donations go directly to program services. The Hoboken Angelwish Wiffleball Classic, hosted by the organization, is an annual event that combines the spirit of competition with an excellent community-focused cause. Attendees included Verizon, Ciena, and last year’s champions, Nasdaq.

“NJFX takes great pride in being able to contribute to causes like Angelwish; we feel that giving back to the community that you live and work in is paramount. At NJFX, corporate social responsibility is something that is held to a great degree of importance,” comments Gil Santaliz, NJFX CEO. “In addition to consciously participating in charities, fundraisers, and local events, we are transparent in our business practices. We think it all adds up to ensuring the company will remain in high regard with employees and the community alike.”

“An event like this a great opportunity to get out and network with other industry players,” adds Felix Seda, NJFX General Manager. “We also get the chance to contribute to our local families in need in a truly meaningful way. That makes the work that we do, feel worthwhile.”

To learn more about Angelwish, visit www.angelwish.org.

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About NJFX:

Lessons from the Sea: A look at ICPC 2019

NJFX Blog / NJFX

Lessons from the Sea: A look at ICPC 2019

May 24, 2019

1. Roy, you recently spoke in San Diego at the ICPC Conference – how was your experience?

RH: It was a fantastic event overall. This year’s theme was: ‘Critical Infrastructure Across the Oceans – Protecting Submarine Cables and the Marine Environment’ and it couldn’t have been a better topic or a better time to meet up with industry leaders and experts. Global communications are dependent on subsea infrastructure and in this day and age, it’s becoming more critical than ever to ensure cables are resilient on every front – seabed, cable landing station level and even how they interconnect with terrestrial fiber backhaul networks.

Being my first ICPC, I was amazed to see the many fronts that the organization is involved with to balance business needs, the environment and laws. It is an impressive, extensive docket.

2. What sector is driving for more transparency into all of that?

RH: It is not one sector, but rather all coming together to realize that clear connections are critical. At NJFX, we have talked to a lot of enterprises, financial firms and carriers which are all being pushed to know the physical network pathways and continue to seek ways to ensure operational independence. Widespread outages have dominated the headlines over the past year and when you couple that with weather, government actions, and other events, the outages can affect millions across major corporations and financial institutions. The thought of diversity being delivered by having a couple of providers is just not enough. It is more important than ever to peel back the layers and figure out what is causing these outages and ensure true resiliency.

3. So, what is causing the non-transparency?

RH: The lack of clarity has come from a variety of sources, but mainly through carrier consolidation wherein once diverse solutions are now migrated for synergies or cost savings. In similar fashion the records, knowledge, and options are also lost in the transition or frankly leave with the personnel affected by the service provider mergers.

When you add in mobile expansion and the upcoming addition of 5G networks, the fiber routes will be even more challenged with more splices, additions, cross overs – you name it.

4. What is the best go-to model for firms?

RH: 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 (hint that is everyone) could do the same. Now, some may not launch subsea systems, but all can look towards dark fiber or even clear connections within neutral hubs as a way to gain more control. That said, we do have a firm looking to launch a subsea system which I touched upon in my presentation to the ICPC plenary.

5. What observations did you make from the conference about the state of the subsea industry?

RH: The subsea environment is strong with numerous projects underway around the globe. There is an equally strong move to recycle old infrastructure, which is great to see. Also, there is more and more data that the cables do not adversely affect the sea, especially when compared to pipelines or other similar systems.

What was fascinating to me is the amount of information about the sea that is being developed. We are mapping more portions of the ocean all the time, learning more about geological and biological changes. The industry is becoming more and more an asset to other organizations and certainly an advocate for the sea’s health and well-being.

6. Were there any new announcements made at the conference that you can share? Give us the scoop!

RH: Wind energy. Lots of development on this front and the cables coming to shore face similar issues as the connectivity systems – especially to the U.S. east coast. Although you may view the ocean as vast, there is increasing competition for the sea floor, especially when you consider added protected zones for fishing, conservation, etc.

7. Tell me more about your presentation. What did the audience zero in on the most? What questions were asked?

RH: I presented a case study for a new operating model that evolved from over a dozen high level conversations with large financial firms. I started by sharing feedback on the frustration that is present with current service providers in terms of aiding enterprises to offer always available solutions – the congestion of networks, overlaps, points of failure, etc. I then highlighted a solution that one firm is exploring which would be a coastal system connecting key cities along the east coast. This project evolved from the mid-Atlantic to northeast being especially problematic when it comes to reliability. As an example, the east coast per circuit number often has more problems than interconnections between cities throughout India.

The audience was surprised to hear an enterprise looking to take on such a project. However, looking back folks felt the same about Google and Facebook when they entered the space. What resonated most is the need for enterprises to have the same service levels as the content players. It is certainly reasonable to have the same access to your bank account as you have to your high school friend’s pet update or whatever you are binge watching.

7. Anything else you want to share?

RH: It was a content rich three days for sure. There is a clear focus on balancing sustainability with commercialization. The ICPC is taking leadership roles in education, planning, and governance. I am excited to continue to participate with the organization and look forward to taking part in future meetings.

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