SCN:
Congratulations to your recent news that the HAVFRUE Transatlantic Subsea Cable System will land at your Campus. There is no shortage of options for reaching submarine cable systems or data center providers that offer them on the East Coast. There are numerous cable landing stations in New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, as well as in Massachusetts and Florida, connecting to Europe, Middle East, Africa, South America, and the Caribbean. What is the secret behind the success of NJFX to win over another cable system to terminate in your Campus?

SANTALIZ:
There a few variables to consider when landing a subsea cable in North America including:

Front Haul. The cost from the beach to a cable landing station can be expensive in a greenfield project, as well knowing that the route will be safe over time without unplanned delays in construction. At the NJFX Campus we have existing front haul owned by others to choose from, which have been proven over the last 20 years.

Elevation matters. Over the last several years storms have brought severe damage, not just from storm surge but also with historic rain. Our natural elevation of 60+ ft above sea level makes NJFX unique with the inclusion of a utility-owned substation on our campus. Reliable power, as well elevation make up some of the unique characteristics

SCN:
Which will be first – data center or subsea network – will data centers in the future dictate the landing points for subsea cables?

SANTALIZ:
Subsea landing points are not going away as they are the most travelled path for global data. NJFX allowed for economies of scale by making the landing point a carrier neutral Tier 3 location with a campus. Traditionally, this was a cost center for the subsea network which overtime was starved for cost savings. Our NJFX model makes for a robust network hub where subsea systems meet diverse multiple fiber backhaul carriers. This enables diversity and a competitive market place for everyone. Every participant gets better ROI, especially the early adopters which have unique assets the market can monetize.

SCN:
What is the cost benefit of terminating in data centers over traditional cable landing stations?

SANTALIZ:
A data center is a different standard of construction, which allows for concurrently maintained systems to provide 99.9999 availability. Traditionally, a CLS could lose power and rely on the other side of the cable to support the system operation or might have a sister cable which could manage an outage, so the investment might not be there in developing the site. Our scalable campus started with phase 1 of 6 in our Tier 3 facility with room for operationally independent facilities for others that could want to peer, cache data, establish independent CLS options or additional colocation for latency sensitive applications.

SCN:
The landing of submarine cables in the US have recently shifted towards Virginia, do you see that as a healthy competition or is NJFX planning to invest in other data centers at other landing sites?

SANTALIZ:
Balancing networks are important and NJFX is a great partner. Today, Virginia Beach only has one non carrier-neutral CLS where they are working with 2 subsea cables, which should also be represented at NJFX. Our carriers should look at protecting their capacity through Virginia Beach and Long Island as alternate transatlantic crossings. What is irresponsible is to tether to a CLS from a distant carrier hotel to multiple CLS’s and create a single point of failure – miles away from the real HUB, the CLS Campus. NYC and Miami have already shown us the vulnerabilities of this type of configuration.

SCN:
Will OTT’s not operate or build their own data centers/interconnection facilities – or will they always outsource this to companies like NJFX?

SANTALIZ:
Again, being carrier-neutral we can take advantage of creating communities of interest with economies of scale in a way others can’t.

SCN:
Is the NJFX model unique? Or could that be transferred to other parts of the World?

SANTALIZ:
We hope to see other countries take advantage of our concept. In fairness, Interxion has led this effort successfully in Marseille over the last few years and Djibouti Data Center in Africa are also moving in this direction.

SCN:
What does the future hold for NJFX, what are plans to grow with this very dynamic industry?

SANTALIZ:
The peering community is our next focus as peering has always been local. Our neighboring metro is NYC of which we hope to offer a diverse play for that community at the NJ Shore with unrivalled capacity and wholesale rates. Our campus can support additional colocation facilities – again purpose built to provide the interconnection model of the future globally local.