Industry News

Keeping The Lights On

Keeping The Lights On

From 9/11 to Hurricane Sandy, the US has had a number of wake-up calls when it comes to its infrastructure. NJFX founder and CEO Gil Santaliz tells Melanie Mingas where the next points of failure could occur

Gil Santaliz

CEO

May 10, 2022

Capacity Media – Despite the rapid and widespread deployment of advanced connectivity infrastructure, the US has experienced several major outages over the past 20 years that happened just when the country needed its networks the most. The first major lesson in network resilience came on 9/11 when infrastructure damage and traffic surges took out mobile networks.

“9/11 was a wake-up call to how global connectivity actually operates,”

says NJFX founder and CEO Gil Santaliz.

“The number of calls getting through was one in four or one in 10, depending on the time of day. The basic lesson learned was that phones aren’t meant for everyone to use at the same time,” he adds.

Then, in 2012, came Hurricane Sandy. This event took out mobile and fixed connectivity as well as TV and entire data centres – what’s more, it proved that traditional subsea architectures were flawed. Aggregating traffic to route through New York and Miami had created two huge points of failure and the impact was felt as far afield as Europe.

“During Sandy, lower Manhattan lost power for multiple days and many providers lost all their capacity between North America and Europe, while some lost capacity between South America and Europe. Lower Manhattan affected global communications and it was after Sandy that the OTTs started on the path we are on today, and that was to diversify subsea architecture,” he recalls.

Today, New York is “no longer the epicentre” of US telecoms infrastructure and a series of diverse routes make a repeat of 2012 unlikely. However, while the industry has spent the past 20 years experiencing and solving these issues, another has emerged.

Twenty years ago, data centres occupied old corporate units across Manhattan; now they have largely moved to states with swathes of vacant land and tax incentives. “But what we left behind was the internet,” Santaliz says. “In those buildings in New York City, in Miami, where everything comes to one point to intersect.”

He is referring to the middle mile, the everything between the two last miles, where the bulk of network activity is concentrated.

He continues: “Internet connectivity now is dependent on infrastructure built 20, 40, 60 years ago that used to be office buildings or department stores. But once I leave that data centre or home, I have to compute and process that data – and, unfortunately, a lot of that middle mile infrastructure was not purpose-built, it was inherited.”

The solution sounds simple enough: continue to upgrade, but with business models based on collaboration, and focus on the future, rather than the capacity demands of the present. The catch is that such endeavours are expensive.

To help things along, late last year the US introduced a middle mile funding programme, intended to close gaps in underserved areas and create alternative network paths. As part of the US$65 billion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, it will see $1 billion made available to carriers.

“I think the new standard has to be to invest with a long-term view. Don’t put band-aids on problems you’re having, and don’t add more capacity in buildings that don’t make long-term sense. Start thinking about the end in mind, because a band-aid is only as good as a band-aid. You have to plan for a full solution,” Santaliz says.

“If New York City is still a single point of failure in your network, shame on you – because we have known that for a long time. Build resiliency into your platform,” he adds.

Different roads

For its part, NJFX celebrates seven years in operation in September and has a target to host 60 network operators by the end of 2023, up from 45 by the end of this year.

On the realities of that, Santaliz says: “They have to invest with you, they have to plan how to come to the building. If they all took the same road to bring their fibre to the building, we would have a single point of failure on that road that comes to the facility. We took the time to explai

Gil Santaliz moderates a session at ITW 2022 discussing 'The Never Down Internet Infrastructure'
Starting from the left: Gil Santaliz NJFX, Kevin Briggs CISA, Guy Tal LUMEN, Peter Cohen MICROSOFT

n to each different provider to take different roads.”

These issues are explored later today in the 4pm panel on stage A, The Reality of Never Down Network Infrastructure. Joining Santaliz on the panel is Kevin Briggs, regional protective security adviser at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency(CISA), which NJFX has worked with recently. Briggs is expe ted to share further details on how the agency aims to work with carriers.

“A lot of us in the industry are afraid of regulations, but it’s just the opposite. This group is here to try and provide support and resources and provide a way to collaborate on common issues that all carriers have. How do we keep these networks up and running and never down?”

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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.

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SUSTAINABLE SUBSEA AT NJFX

Sustainable Subsea at NJFX

Energy + Telecommunications: Bringing together worlds at the Cable landing station 

SubTel Forum Magazine #123 – Finance & Legal

Published on 

Even for zero-carbon operators, such as the cable landing station campus NJFX, efficiency remains key.

“Energy efficiency is always at the forefront when considering design in power intensive critical infrastructure,” NJFX CEO Gil Santaliz reports.

And as Gil Santaliz makes plans to establish solar panels this year at NJFX, he too will have to work creatively to address the challenges to renewable development.

“if telecom equipment fans are exhausting hot air to a wrong direction for optimization, our customers don’t want to hear about changing equipment and affecting their customers, and they are correct. So, the option is to investigate how those fans can be reversed without affecting service, or if there are air flow baffles available, or if a different kind of rack door would help.”

Gil Santaliz echoes this sentiment: because “never down” is the standard, “best practices that are proven without impact to site resilience is easy. New technologies are challenging to incorporate when there is any potential of impact to the twenty-five year design life.”

 

Click here to read the full article about Sustainable Subsea.

Click here to read this months issue of SubTel Forum Magazine.

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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.

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7 QUESTIONS WITH GIL SANTALIZ

7 QUESTIONS WITH GIL SANTALIZ

Talking Technology Trends with NJFX’s CEO

As Featured in SUBMARINE TELECOMS FORUM (Issue 122 January 2022)

Gil Santaliz

CEO

January 19, 2022

1. WHAT IS NJFX’S MISSION?

Our Mission is to grow our existing secure layer-one fiber ecosystem infrastructure providing global reliability and diversity to the foundation of the internet and global mission critical connectivity. Today, NJFX serves over 30 network operators across five subsea cables, 20 terrestrial cables interconnecting Europe, South America and the Caribbean and over 300 ASN’s in a global internet exchange from Wall, NJ in the USA.

2. HOW DOES NJFX PARTICIPATE IN THE SUBMARINE CABLE MARKET?

NJFX is a Communication Infrastructure marketplace where layer one submarine providers, terrestrial fiber networks, Internet Exchanges, CDN’s and global networks interexchange network traffic. The Submarine cable market can depend on this carrier neutral existing collocation CLS infrastructure to deploy its SLTE operating with a higher rate of availability and performance than extending out on a single terrestrial backhaul ring system. These extensions to other network hubs which aren’t purpose built introduce new failure points reducing uptime and exposing national security threats to subsea systems. As an active participant in this subsea industry, NJFX actively participates in trade shows to grow an ecosystem supporting the diversity of the subsea systems it hosts. In 2021, NJFX reached critical mass with physical carrier infrastructure assets of subsea, terrestrial cables & carriers POP’s to support the needed diversity for “Never Down” solutions.

3. IS NJFX CURRENTLY INVOLVED WITH MANY NEW SUBMARINE CABLE PROJECTS?

NJFX is always active with multiple new subsea projects working their way to “CIF” Contract in Force. These development projects look to eliminate risk and provide a clear path to deployment with a 25 year horizon of operations. Our design allows for decades of concurrent maintainability without planned outages for a layering of subsea systems at various stages of their life cycles.

4. WHAT MAKES NJFX UNIQUE IN THE SUBMARINE SYSTEM MARKET?

NJFX is the only Tier3 Carrier Neutral CLS Campus in North America. The CLS was purpose built in 2016 at 64 ft above sea level with a Hurricane 5 resistant design, Tier3 electrical & cooling infrastructure, 2N electric distribution & UPS, four diverse POE’s, profes- FEATURE JANUARY 2022 | ISSUE 122 19 sional Meet Me Rooms for carrier-neutral interconnectivity and access to existing diverse North & South front haul conduits to beach manholes with bore pipes. Understanding the critical importance of security, our collocation Tier3 by the Subsea CLS collocation facility includes mantraps, level 3 ballistic proof walls, dual authentic biometric access system and redundant site access control rooms with closed circuit BMS/Security Cameras. It is uniquely designed for secure collocation with high density options offering a variety of fiber routes by-passing the non-purpose built traditional carrier hotels.

5. WHAT ARE THE ELEMENTS OF NJFX’S SUCCESS?

6. AS SUSTAINABILITY HAS BECOME A HOT BUTTON ISSUE IN OUR INDUSTRY, WHAT ARE NJFX’S PLANS FOR SUSTAINABLE OPERATION FOR THE NEXT 5 YEARS?

7. WHAT IS NEXT FOR NJFX?

Read the remaining answers and original article at SubTelForum (page 15-17) 

https://issuu.com/subtelforum/docs/subtel_forum_122

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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.

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7 QUESTIONS WITH GIL SANTALIZ Read More »

Russian submarines threatening undersea network of internet cables, says UK defence chief Sir Tony Radakin

Russian submarines threatening undersea network of internet cables, says UK defence chief Sir Tony Radakin

Any attempt to damage the underwater cables on which “predominantly all the world’s information and traffic travels” could be considered an “act of war”, the UK’s newly appointed head of the armed forces tells The Times.

Original article posted at SKY NEWS
by Philip Whiteside

The head of Britain’s armed forces is warning Russian submarines are threatening a crucial network of underwater cables that carry information around the world.

Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, who was appointed chief of the defence staff in October, said the undersea cables that transmit internet data are “the world’s real information system”.

Sir Tony – a former head of the Royal Navy – told The Times newspaper there had been a “phenomenal increase in Russian submarine and underwater activity” in the last 20 years.

It meant Moscow could “put at risk and potentially exploit the world’s real information system, which is undersea cables that go all around the world”.

“That is where predominantly all the world’s information and traffic travels,” he added. “Russia has grown the capability to put at threat those undersea cables and potentially exploit those undersea cables.”

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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.

More In the News

Russian submarines threatening undersea network of internet cables, says UK defence chief Sir Tony Radakin Read More »

DigitalInfra Network interviews Gil Santaliz and Peter Narebo

DigitalInfra Network interviews Gil Santaliz and Peter Narebo

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

Gil Santaliz

CEO

December 28, 2021

DigitalInfra Network has Dom Robinson interview Gil Santaliz, CEO of NJFX & Peder Narebo CEO of Bulk Infrastructure. Listen as they explore strategies to improve sustainability within the growing need for Data Center infrastructure as well as discuss how Subsea Fiber routes are unlocking global renewable energy sources.

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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.

More In the News

DigitalInfra Network interviews Gil Santaliz and Peter Narebo Read More »

50 Innovative Companies to Watch 2021

50 Innovative Companies to Watch 2021

The First and Only Carrier Neutral Cable Landing Station Colocation Campus in the United States: NJFX

“We are getting interested parties to come to our CLS campus to learn more about what we are doing here, including Telecommunications Ministries from South America.”

Gil Santaliz

CEO

October 1, 2021

NJFX, also known as New Jersey Fiber Exchange, is an incredibly unique Wall Township, NJ-based data center operator. 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 campus is the only 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.

NJFX was incorporated in 2015.

Interview Excerpt: Gil Santaliz

Q. What strategies are in place to encourage innovation in your company?

Innovation within our company is driven by competition in the marketplace and the desire to have the most cost effective solution for our customers. We are always looking to find new ways to find better total cost of ownership for our customers. We have extended the skill sets of our employees to support our customers with more technical resources, so they don’t have to hire and send their own technicians to our location. We can work as needed, including 24x7x365. We also proactively maintain all of our customers’ equipment. This makes it virtually unnecessary for our customers to send their own techs, incurring travel and lodging costs in addition to compensation. We have the skill sets and talents to do it internally, increasing uptime, allowing for upgrades, and having predictability in operations.

Q. How uniquely do you address your clients’ needs, given that NJFX offers flexibility, reliability, and security that global carriers, content providers, and enterprise or government entities utilize to drive network reliability, while reducing expenses?

At NJFX, no two installs are the same—everyone has the availability to design what makes sense for them and we support that kind of creativity. On security, we have taken steps to embrace our relationships with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and other state and local agencies. There is an awareness in the industry about security issues and that we must remain proactive. Because we are a country of law and order, we provide confidentiality to our customers to protect their privacy. We hire and retain employees with security clearances to support the rule of law, and support our customers’ needs with folks who can maintain confidentiality and who are trusted by our telecommunications industry.

Q. What makes your HIPAA compliant colocation campus unique?

With this certification, NJFX has achieved the highest standards required by healthcare and financial institutions today. Our highly secure facility is SSAE 16/18 Type 2 certified, and combined with our CLS security standards, places NJFX in a world-class status. By attaining HIPAA compliance certification, it allows the healthcare industry to participate in the NJFX ecosystem confidently.

Q. How does dark fiber play a role in routing between key international locations? And how secure is it?

Layer-1 dark fiber is the infrastructure of communications. Without having multiple dark fiber routes in your facility you don’t have a secure infrastructure. We are close to having over 26 fiber cables managed by various network operators. That represents the physical infrastructure for what makes global communications work. If a client has dark fiber, then they own it and can control the security of their network. A client can physically see if anyone touched or accessed that fiber system.

If a customer doesn’t have dark fiber, then that fiber is lit and managed by their telecom provider.

Q. What new endeavors is your company currently undertaking? 

We’re considering expanding our staff to provide marine protection services to allow our customers to benefit from our local knowledge not only in New Jersey but the subsea industry as a whole. This way, an owner-operator can coordinate protecting their cable with agencies like the Army Corp of Engineers. One example is that recently, the Army Corp of Engineers turned to NJFX for help with a beach replenishment project. We were able to determine the right entity to contact to ensure the beach replenishment would not disturb a subsea cable. We would like to be able to serve as consultants in an official capacity with agencies and organizations such as the Army Corp of Engineers.

Q. Forming and managing innovation teams is overwhelming. That said, how do you keep your decision-makers focused?

Our guiding principles are honesty, integrity, and customer first. We keep that in mind in every interaction we undertake.

Q. Let’s talk about your team of experts and their role at NJFX. How did you form your dream squad, and how unique is it?

Employees at NJFX come with various backgrounds. On the business development side, we have been able to cultivate fresh talent. They “grew up” at NJFX learning the industry from operators and carriers, to understand this business, what’s driving the decision making and the direction of where it’s going and how to adapt our model to support those operator and carrier economics. On the operations side of the company, we hired industry veterans who have lived through every situation possible, and can use that knowledge base and expertise to support our customers. So, it is a nice balance of having a very senior Operations team and a business development team who has learned the industry and building key relationships along the way.

Q. How do you plan to transform your company into a future that is unfolding before you?

Our ultimate goal is to expand beyond New Jersey, and to make our CLS model the standard for landing subsea cables around the world. We are getting interested parties to come to our CLS campus to learn more about what we are doing here, including Telecommunications Ministries from South America. They want to emulate our model, which consists of sound infrastructure plus multiple subsea cables, terrestrial routes, with a network hub. One example is Chile is looking to become a gateway to Asia from South America. Those officials came to NJFX to see how we do it. They want to be able to have applications available at a CLS, including peering, route selection and connectivity to neighboring countries, just as we have here. The idea is to welcome subsea traffic, without hops which are points of failure, exchanging internet capacity as well as directing traffic where it needs to go.

The Leader Upfront

Gil Santaliz, Founder, serves as the Chief Executive Officer of NJFX. He helps carriers strategically diversify connectivity options to key hubs across North/South America/Europe bypassing legacy chokepoints. His innovative approach to thinking outside traditional partnerships and network architecture, led him to establish NJFX’s unique offering.

Mr. Santaliz is the visionary behind a new CLS model that has spurred unprecedented connectivity at the point where subsea and terrestrial cable systems meet. NJFX is North America’s first colocation campus that strategically intersects a carrier-neutral subsea Cable Landing Station meet-me room with an independent Tier-3 colocation facility. He was instrumental in bringing the HAVRUE/AEC-2 subsea system to NJFX, the first new subsea cable traversing the North Atlantic in two decades. The ecosystem Mr. Santaliz has developed helped carriers respond to the demand for increased bandwidth through the COVID-19 pandemic. Most recently, under his leadership, NJFX has received federal approval to become an ITU Development (ITU-D) Sector member, to help connect underserved populations to the internet. The ITU is the United Nations’ specialized agency for information and communication technologies. Notably, NJFX hosted a South American delegation to learn more about its unique CLS campus model. The delegation included Chile’s highest ranking communications official.

Previously, as founder of a metro fiber network company called 4Connections LLC, he Santaliz realized there was a lack of route diversity for carriers. He sold 4Connections to Cablevision, which is now owned by Altice.

Mr. Santaliz is a member of the Submarine Networks EMEA 2020 Advisory Board, and PTC Advisory Board. He earned a bachelor of science from Cornell University.

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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.

More In the News

50 Innovative Companies to Watch 2021 Read More »

What is a submarine cable? Subsea fiber explained

What is a submarine cable? Subsea fiber explained

Our wireless world depends on a few hundred fiber cables laid on the ocean floor

Original article posted at DataCenterDynamics.com
by Dan Swinhoe

August 31, 2021

Though we live in an increasingly wireless world, that connectivity depends on wires under the ocean.

Subsea or submarine cables are fiber optic cables that connect countries across the world via cables laid on the ocean floor. These cables – often thousands of miles in length – are able to transmit huge amounts of data rapidly from one point to another.

What is a submarine cable?

A submarine cable is a fiber optic cable laid in the ocean, connecting two or more landing points.Rarely much wider than a garden hose, today cables generally comprise of the optical fibers that carry the information, which are then covered in silicon gel, then sheathed in varying layers of plastic, steel wiring, copper, and nylon in order to provide insulation to protect the signal and protect the cable from damage from wildlife, anchors & fishing, or weather & other natural events.

The cables are laid using ships that are modified specifically for this purpose, transporting and slowly laying the ‘wet plant’ infrastructure on the seabed. These special ships can carry thousands of kilometers of optical cable out to sea. A special subsea plow is also used to trough and bury submarine cables along the seabed closer to shorelines where naval activities, such as anchoring and fishing, are most prevalent and could damage submarine cables.

“We’ve had submarine cables for over 150 years,” explains Gil Santaliz, founder and CEO of New Jersey cable landing station NJFX, “and they’ve really been a way for communication between countries and continents.”“The most basic application is communicating what’s happening in one part of the world to another, but we’ve morphed that to allow applications to exist in multiple countries at the same time, to enhance the performance of applications, and to find eco-friendly locations where you can run applications with a zero-carbon footprint yet enjoy the application the country where they don’t have that resource.”

Subsea cables; connecting the world for 170 years

Work to demonstrate the potential of subsea cables began in the 1840s, when Samuel Morse, the inventor of Morse Code, submerged a wire insulated with tarred hemp and India rubber, in the water of New York Harbor and telegraphed through it in 1842.The first commercial cable was laid in 1850, when the English Channel Submarine Telegraph Company laid a telegraph cable between England and France. It was cut weeks later by fishermen thinking it was seaweed. 

A successor company, the Submarine Telegraph Company, laid a second cable the next year and more cables linking the British Isles to mainland Europe followed.In 1854 and completed in 1858, the Transatlantic telegraph cable – which ran from Valentia in western Ireland to Bay of Bulls, Trinity Bay, Newfoundland and was the first to traverse the Atlantic – was laid by the Atlantic Telegraph Company. It only functioned for only three weeks before breaking beyond repair.

The first official telegram to pass between two continents – at a rate of a single character every two minutes – was a letter of congratulations from Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom to President of the United States James Buchanan on August 16. Following progressive signal deterioration, the cable was destroyed after excessive voltage was applied to try and boost the transmission strength. While it was only in operation for a short time, it showed intercontinental communication was possible and a second cable was laid in 1865.The first trans-Pacific cables were completed in 1902 and 1903, linking the US mainland to Hawaii in 1902 and Guam to the Philippines in 1903.The first subsea telephone cable, TAT-1, was laid between 1955 and 1956. 

A joint project between the UK Post Office (of which BT was part for a number of years), the American Telephone and Telegraph company (now AT&T), and the Canadian Overseas Telecommunications Corporation, it was able to carry 35 simultaneous telephone calls.The eighth transatlantic communications cable, TAT-8, was the first fiber optic subsea cable. Constructed in 1988 by a consortium of companies led by AT&T, France Télécom, and British Telecom, the cable was able to carry 280 Mbits per second. It was retired in 2002.Today there are more than 400 subsea cables in operation. 

Some connecting nearby islands can be shorter than 50 miles long. Others, traversing the pacific, can reach more than 10,000 miles in length. Some connect singles points across a body of water, others have multiple landing points connecting multiple countries.Antarctica is the only continent not yet reached by a submarine telecommunications cable, though one is reportedly being considered to improve connectivity for researchers in the region.Cable technology evolves quicklyAfter choosing the desired route…
Read the complete article here.###

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.
 

More In the News

What is a submarine cable? Subsea fiber explained Read More »

The Rise of 5G Continues to Drive the Proliferation of Subsea Cables

The Rise of 5G Continues to Drive the Proliferation of Subsea Cables

Original Article posted at DigitalInfraNetwork.com
by Mark Venables

August 10, 2022

Since the first cable landing station began operating almost 150 years ago, they have grown to become a vital element of the digital infrastructure that drives much of the industrial and social communications. According to the last data available from Submarine Cable Map, there are about 400 submarine cables around the world, that is a volume of more than 1.2 million km of submarine cables. These submarine fiber-optic cables are irreplaceable: they are more efficient than satellite connections, as it is estimated that a cable has a transferring capacity of almost three thousand satellites.

One company heavily involved in this business is New Jersey Fiber Exchange (NJFX). A big difference in what NJFX can offer is that they are carrier-neutral, meaning they do not own and operate the cable. Instead, they support the system’s operators, independent of the economic relationship, and help them manage the capacity and equipment to make sure it is always running.

The New Jersey facility that the company uses is impressive. Even though it appears to be one building, it is considered two buildings internally by code so that the generator room can support nine MWs of power. There is the support space for all the electricity coming into the building, the main distribution rooms, power distribution rooms, and DC plants. Then there is something called whitespace, which is essentially what is usable in the building. The company’s whitespace is designed for 1100 rack equivalents and 4.4 MW worth of IT. There is also a rise of enterprise customers coming from US banks and hospitals who are now tenants in the building because they want to be as close to those cables as possible and access the providers that come to the stations. “Verizon is a customer of ours, and they are there to pick up their international capacity and send it back and forth,” Gil Santaliz, CEO of NJFX, says. “My customers would work with Verizon in the building to get access to their core network nodes, and that’s where the action is in Telecom because that is how you connect countries.”

Powering the cable

The power that it takes to run the cables can vary depending on the cable’s distance. For a transatlantic system, the power feed will usually be between 50-60 KW, depending on how many paths of fibre there are. The way these cables are designed, they can power from either side of the ocean. There is no boost station required, the cables have repeaters on them which boost the signal across the ocean.

The company places a lot of emphasis on security in terms of access to those cables, this is due to the global economy’s financial implications for their operation and their privacy. The cable landing station that the company uses has many security provisions such as mantrap access controls, ballistic three lobbies and an advanced ticketing system for visitors who are coming to the building. Making sure that the security works has become as important as the security itself, as companies want to make sure that no one can get anywhere close to accessing vital fibres.

“On our campus, we have four subsea cables,” Santaliz continues. “This includes the original Tata TGN one and two that connect the UK to the US, the C Bras cable, which Telecom owns, and most recently, the half route cable that went live, this goes from NJFX in New Jersey to Denmark, Ireland and Norway.”

Challenges ahead

For landing station operators, there are some big challenges. While security may be a major issue, ensuring the correct maintenance of power and cooling is vital. If they cannot be properly maintained, the equipment will not work, and the cable will fail. “We provide Smart Hands, which is technical expertise on how to support cables, DW/DM or SLT equipment,” Santaliz continues. “We have a highly technical team that can support operating the subsea cables, which has been especially important during COVID because of restricted travel. Our team did a lot of the work where traditionally, they might have hired the third party to come and do it.”

The company was chosen by Bulk Infrastructure as the US on-ramp location for the Nordic Gateway, an on-ramp solution accessing fibre networks that unlocks the sustainable Nordic region’s natural resources which stretches 7,200 kilometres from New Jersey to Denmark and Norway. “We recognise NJFX as a model for an evolved cable landing station, with both direct access to subsea systems and data centre capabilities at the landing point,” Peder Naerboe, owner and chairman of Bulk Infrastructure AS,” Santaliz continues. “We believe The Nordic Gateway unlocks one of the few genuinely sustainable solutions in the data centre industry today. With this solution, the industry can utilise 100 per cent pure emissions-free hydropower from the Nordic countries.”

Coping with COVID

The COVID-19 pandemic has also presented great difficulty for NJFX. Despite travel being highly restricted, having technicians work from home was not an option. The company worked alongside the local government to make sure that the vaccination of employees was prioritised. They also went through a protocol process to keep people separate in the facility and enforced a do not touch policy with cards indoors. “We did pretty well because we could help our customers, and we never took a hiccup in terms of staffing the facility,” Santaliz says. “The other one was, post the capital event, there were lots of threats on New York City once again, and the fact that we have a fenced-in perimeter, and in a rural area, gives us much better protection for those unfortunate man-made threats that are still out there.”

Despite these difficulties, the market for cables is expected to continue growing over the next few years, especially with the rapid spread of 5g. “There are two main parts of cables, the arteries and the capillarity,” Santaliz explains. “The arteries are the subsea networks, and the capillarity is what we are starting to see now with the proliferation of 5g. That capillarity will grow the artery requirement, and the more touchpoints we have between countries will make those arteries larger.”

This growth can be best exemplified by the increase of projects in countries that were never included before. “Africa has got an incredible boom going on right now when it comes to the number of connectivity projects in Africa,” Santaliz concludes. “South America is getting lots of projects that they never had before, the total number of cables between the US and Brazil five years ago was less than six cables, and there will be at least 12 in the next two years. Each cable has ten times more capacity than the ones before, so they are going to start retiring the older cables because they are just not economically viable.”

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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.

More In the News

The Rise of 5G Continues to Drive the Proliferation of Subsea Cables Read More »

Chile

Chile’s Digital Transformation

Chile’s Digital Transformation

Gil Santaliz

CEO

Ryan Imkemeier

Cable Landing Station Manager

Originally published by Capacity Media on May 17, 2021.

May 19, 2021

Chile

In March 2020, NJFX founder and CEO Gil Santaliz, was in São Paulo for Capacity Latam. It was shortly before flights were grounded by the pandemic – a move that would force him to leave the show early – but that’s not the point of his story. As luck would have it, while Santaliz was out of the country, he received a phone call to say Chile’s Ministry of Transport and Communications (MTT) was visiting the US and wanted to tour NJFX.

“They wanted to get better insight into how cables operated in the US going to Europe, as well as going down to South America,” says Santaliz via video call from New Jersey.

In his absence, business development manager Sarah Kurtz hosted the delegates, alongside industry heavyweights from Tata Communications and Aqua Comms. But this was no run-of-the-mill tour. The visiting party included Natalia López, the head of the Telecommunications Development Fund division for the government of Chile and lead on the Asia-South America Digital Gateway Project.

López and the team didn’t just want to look at NJFX; the delegation wanted to understand the role of an integrated, colocation cable landing station (CLS) in creating a connectivity a gateway.

“Three years ago, the Undersecretariat of Telecommunications in Chile decided to move forward to make Chile a digital hub,” López explains.

“In order to reach that, we are deploying more than 15,000 kms of optical fibre for high-capacity domestic networks. This deployment will allow all localities to have access to a fibre-optic connection, doubling the current backbone capacity of data transmission for those areas. Alongside of that, we have worked strongly to enhance international connectivity,” López continues.

The two-part plan saw a sharp increase in the number of international interconnection points with neighbouring countries, achieved by developing fibre over 12 new border crossings, and then the first fibre route to link South America directly with Asia.

In progress

Due to the impending Covid lockdowns the party had to leave NJFX early, meaning Santaliz didn’t get to meet López in person; however, the knowledge share continued over the ensuing months and the Asia-South America Digital Gateway Project is moving at pace.

“We haven’t travelled since, nor have they, but we had the communication with the ministry from Chile and they are moving forward with their project,” Santaliz explains.

The digital gateway was announced in 2019 when MTT and the development bank of Latin America, CAF, signed a $3 million technical cooperation agreement to finance feasibility studies, later conducted by Subsecretaría de Comunicaciones (SUBTEL), Chile’s telecom regulator. The initial aim was to lay a cable up to 15,000 miles long with at least two fibre pairs and a transmission capacity of 10-20 Tbp.

“With these developments, Chile’s international bandwidth capacity will undergo a 40-fold increment,” López says.
The Transoceanic Cable was confirmed in July 2020 and officially named Humboldt by the regulator in January this year – with a route that would link Valparaiso, Chile with New Zealand and Sydney. According to the Chilean government it was the most cost-effective route, although Shanghai was originally being considered before international concerns were raised.

That aside, Santaliz says: “They are moving on their efforts to have Chile become the gateway towards, in this case Australia and from there on to Asia, basically. So Chile is the first country in Latin America creating this new gateway across to Sydney.”

López adds: “Currently, as there aren’t any direct routes to Asia Pacific, traffic from South America goes through the US. That directly impacts the latency and quality of service which is critical for new technology requirements such as 5G or IoT.

“We expect Humboldt will reduce the latency between the continents significantly, it will increase South America’s available capacity, it will provide diversity to existing regional routes that rely strongly on the US, and it will offer an alternative route to traditional Trans-Pacific systems.”

Over 2020 a series of further announcements emerged from the country. On the data centre front, EdgeConneX opened the first of two facilities in Santiago, and Huawei announced its second hub in the country would open in the same city by the end of the year.

Google’s 10,500km Curie cable landed in the coastal city of Valparaiso and phase two of the Caribbean Express cable was announced, connecting Panama to Chile, then linking into Ecuador and Peru.

Accenture calculates that in 2018 the digital economy accounted for 22% of Chile’s GDP and, as it will in other nations, 5G will drive that figure even higher in the coming years.

It’s a priority area for López and the departments she works with, and there’s much work ahead to secure the opportunity.
“Moving forward with the main objective, we have worked hard to lead the development of 5G networks in our region by being the first country to make spectrum available for 5G networks,” she says.

“In a context marked by the pandemic, with economic slowdown and drop in investments throughout the region, the Chilean telecommunications sector is expected to support the national economic recovery effort,” she continues. According to her figures, telecoms will bring more than $3 billion in investments through new projects and will create 60,000 new jobs, “which will play an important role for the country’s economic recovery in the coming years”.

“In addition, various reports indicate that 5G will generate an economic impact of 1% of GDP by 2035, as long as we are innovative to work on creating value. This 5G digital infrastructure is what will allow Chile to compete in the 4.0 digital economy of AI and the Internet of Things,” says López (pictured below).

Independent LatAm

On that point, the knowledge exchange with NJFX has covered a number of topics.

“We have shared with them the concept of being open, the benefits of having a landing station used for multiple cables, not just one at a time,” Santaliz explains.

“We gave our advice to them and they are reviewing it and we have conversations on their architecture. Depending on the final grouping they have, the members of this new cable, we might even be able to develop their landing station for them. So that’s an opportunity that we would consider, depending on who the anchor consortium members would be for that,” he adds.

Developing a CLS takes up to two years, by which time Chile’s requirements will have progressed significantly, but the country – and wider region – are well ahead in preparing for future needs.

 

“There’s an incredible amount of investment already happening in South America,” says Santaliz, citing the Monet, BRUSA and Seabras-1 cables.

“They are going to start going through the end-of-life cycle with the existing cables that are there and one of the challenges is to make sure that the new cables – even though they have so much greater capacity than the old cables – you’re going to still need more of them,” he adds, before revealing that, “we should expect two more cables announced within the next two years.”

However, this next generation of cables – such as Ellalink, connecting Lat Am to the US, and the South Atlantic Cable System linking Angola with Brazil – will not depend on the US. It’s a trend Santaliz says is bringing independence to the region, but it needs to extend beyond the shoreline – and that’s a subject he is so passionate about, he featured on this year’s day three Capacity Latam panel, Delivering diverse connectivity to Latin America.

“The last challenge is you have the arteries built but do you have the capillarity in place? Is there going to be a competitive landscape for capillarity in Lat Am? Because inexpensive international capacity doesn’t give you very much if you don’t have competitive local access. The ministry is very aware that it is not about landing a cable – how do we get that cable’s connectivity across the country?

“So that’s the next challenge you’re going to have to develop – getting that infrastructure built,” Santaliz adds. While he’s a fan of the public-private model championed by the US for its rural connectivity needs, he sees another, equally transferable model, gaining popularity.

“What you are seeing is partnerships that we have not seen before.”

Giving an example, he explains: “The MVNOs… In the US if you have Verizon making the investment, they are going to allow Comcast, they are going to allow Altice, AT&T to piggyback on the deployment of their 5G. So you are going to see multiple partners that are non-traditional, starting to work together, to make the economics of 5G work in the US.”
In short, it’s all about “understanding what the private sector’s costs are in deploying private infrastructure”.

No doubt such trends will wash up on Chile’s shore, but for now the focus is on the plan in motion.

“To sum up, we can say that Humboldt cable is part of a very ambitious plan of the government of Chile to promote the essential digital infrastructure to become a key player in the digital economy and becoming a hub in our region,” López concludes.

###

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.

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Chile’s Digital Transformation Read More »

Chile’s Digital Transformation

Chile’s Digital Transformation

Leveraging its Pacific coast, Chile will soon host a digital gateway linking Latin America to Asia. But with the power to solve a nationwide challenge, it’s bringing more than connectivity, NJFX founder and CEO Gil Santaliz tells Melanie Mingas.

Gil Santaliz

CEO

Article originally published by Melanie Mingas of Capacity Media on April 26th, 2021.

April 26, 2021

In March 2020, NJFX’s Gil Santaliz was in São Paulo for Capacity Latam. It was shortly before flights were grounded by the pandemic – a move that would force him to leave the show early – but that’s not the point of his story. As luck would have it, while Santaliz was out of the country, he received a phone call to say Chile’s Ministry of Transport and Communications (MTT) was visiting the US and wanted to tour NJFX.

“They wanted to get better insight into how cables operated in the US going to Europe, as well as going down to South America,” says Santaliz via video call from New Jersey.

In his absence, business development manager Sarah Kurtz hosted the delegates, alongside industry heavyweights from Tata Communications and Aqua Comms. But this wasn’t a run-of-the-mill tour. The visiting party included Natalia López, the head of the Telecommunications Development Fund division for the government of Chile and lead on the Asia-South America Digital Gateway Project.

López and the team didn’t just want to look at NJFX; the delegation wanted to understand the role of an integrated, colocation cable landing station (CLS) in creating a connectivity a gateway.

“They wanted to know how does it work for you guys in the US? How does it work to be in a campus environment supporting four different subsea cables? How do the subsea groups benefit from what you have created?

“And then trying to see first-hand the design of the building, how we segment subsea and terrestrial, what a carrier-neutral meeting room looks like, and talk in more depth about their projects,” Santaliz continues.

Due to the impending Covid lockdowns the party had to leave early, meaning Santaliz didn’t get to meet them in person; however, the knowledge share continued over the ensuing months and the Asia-South America Digital Gateway Project is
moving at pace.

“We haven’t travelled since, nor have they, but we had the communication with the ministry from Chile and they are moving forward with their project – Chile is becoming a new gateway for South America,” Santaliz explains.

The digital gateway was announced in 2019 when MTT and the development bank of Latin America, CAF, signed a $3 million technical cooperation agreement to finance feasibility studies, later conducted by Chile’s telecom regulator Subtel. A cable integration, the initial aim was to lay a cable up to 15,000 miles long with at least two fibre pairs and a transmission capacity of 10-20Tbps.

The Transoceanic Cable was confirmed the following year in July, with a route that would link Valparaiso, Chile with New Zealand and Sydney. According to the Chilean government it was the most cost-effective route, although Shanghai
was originally being considered before international concerns were raised.

That aside, Santaliz says: “They are moving on their efforts to have Chile become the gateway towards, in this case Australia and from there on to Asia, basically. So Chile is the first country in Latin America creating this new gateway
across to Sydney.”

The link will also play a part of the success of the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement, the “first of its kind” agreement that came into force in December, for digital trade and data flows between Singapore, Chile and New
Zealand.

During 2020 a series of further announcements emerged from the country. On the data centre front, EdgeConneX opened the first of two facilities in Santiago and Huawei announced its second hub in the country would open in the same city by the end of the year.

Google’s 10,500km Curie cable landed in the coastal city of Valparaiso and phase two of the Caribbean Express cable was announced, connecting Panama to Chile, then linking into Ecuador and Peru.

OECD analysis published this year concluded that Chile saw the most rapid adoption of mobile broadband in the OECD between 2010 and 2018, with a 10-fold increase in subscriptions. At 87.5%, household connectivity is on a par
with OECD averages and business broadband connectivity is also high, at 89.6%, according to the first Chilean ICT survey conducted in 2019.

However, fixed broadband penetration remains a challenge and, despite having one of the highest rates of annual growth of fibre subscriptions across OECD countries, it stood at 66.5% between 2018 and 2019. Further, fibre connections
account for 25% of total broadband connections and 50% of these connections concentrated in the Región Metropolitana, according to Subtel data.

Independent Latam

The knowledge exchange with NJFX has covered a number of topics, but many come back to tackling these, and similar, challenges.

“We have shared the concept of being open, the benefits of having a landing station used for multiple cables not just one at a time,” Santaliz explains.

“We gave our advice to them and they are reviewing it and we have conversations on their architecture. Depending on the final grouping they have, the members of this new cable, we might even be able to develop their landing station for them. So that’s an opportunity that we would consider, depending on who the anchor consortium members would be for that,” he adds.

Developing a CLS takes up to two years, by which time Chile’s requirements will have progressed significantly, but the country – and wider region – are well ahead in preparing for future needs.

“There’s an incredible amount of investment already happening in South America,” says Santaliz, citing the Monet, BRUSA and Seabras-1 cables.

“They are going to start going through the end-of-life cycle with the existing cables that are there and one of the challenges is to make sure that the new cables – even though they have so much greater capacity than the old cables – you’re going to still need more of them,” he adds, before revealing that, “we should expect two more cables announced within the next two years.”

However, this next generation of cables – such as Ellalink, connecting Latam to the US, and the South Atlantic Cable System linking Angola with Brazil – will not depend on the US. It’s a trend Santaliz says is bringing independence to the region, but it needs to extend beyond the shoreline – and that’s a subject Santaliz is so passionate about, he features on this year’s day three Capacity Latam panel, Delivering diverse connectivity to Latin America.

“The last challenge is you have the arteries built but do you have the capillarity in place? Is there going to be a competitive landscape for capillarity in Latam? Because inexpensive international capacity doesn’t give you very much if you don’t have competitive local access. The ministry is very aware that it is not about landing a cable – how do we get that cable’s connectivity across the country?

“So that’s the next challenge you’re going to have to develop – getting that infrastructure built,” Santaliz adds. While he’s a fan of the public-private model championed by the US for its rural connectivity needs, he sees another trend
unfolding in the industry.

“What you are seeing is partnerships that we have not seen before.”

Giving an example, he explains: “The MVNOs [mobile virtual network operators]… In the US, if you have Verizon making the investment, they are going to allow Comcast, they are going to allow Altice, AT&T to piggyback on the deployment of their 5G. So you are going to see multiple partners that are non-traditional, starting to work together, to make the economics of 5G work in the US.” In short, it’s all about “understanding what the private sector’s costs are in deploying private infrastructure”.

While these partnerships are all about managing the cost, other market shifts are starting to make waves too.

“The private sector adapts to the environment it has and we are part of that private sector and we are adapting to higher availability, better security and better network architecture,” Santaliz says.

For Santaliz, one major adaptation that connectivity will allow – in all regions – is the creation of more over-the-top operators (OTTs). Not just peddling content but providing essential services such as banking and healthcare.

“Facebook was an idea, today it is running global network architecture,” he says. “The banking industry needs to make sure their stuff always works also – they have a philosophy of never being down, never missing a transaction. How can you let a social media company have a better up time than a bank? Who are you going to trust in the future, your Facebook account or your banking account?

“You are going to see a new wave of OTTs who cannot afford not to have the best-in-class assets. They are going to know how the architecture works and they are going to redistribute how their connectivity gets applied.”

Whether more industries taking matters into their own hands is a sign of progress or failure on the part of the incumbent connectors is a point of debate – however, whether banking, healthcare, or both, Santaliz could be onto something.

“This connectivity revolution that we are a part of is changing social dynamics and it is going to allow us to rethink traditional industries in a way that will provide a lot more efficiency.”

###

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.

Chile’s Digital Transformation Read More »

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