CEO Gil Santaliz will be speaking with fellow panelists from Vertical Systems Group, Newby Ventures, Windstream, Gold Data, and AquaComms. Register here to listen in on the JSA panel titled “Redefining Communication in the Wake of COVID-19.”
JSA Virtual Roundtable – June 18, 2020 – 1pm EST Read More »
June 1, 2020
As hurricane season looms, NJFX is ready. Of course, as a Cable Landing Station (CLS) campus, we already have a detailed disaster recovery plan to address various natural disasters, but how about a natural disaster in times of a global pandemic? For most of the world, this situation is completely uncharted territory. But the NJFX team considered this unusual dynamic well before hurricane season started and established a detailed plan with proper COVID-19 safety in mind.
We are living in unprecedented times due to COVID, but NJFX is handling the pandemic with the team’s usual forward-thinking approach. Much of the industry is still operating at limited capacities despite being deemed as ‘essential’, meaning they can get the resources where they are needed, but might be slower to do so with fewer employees. This makes the NJFX team’s proactiveness all the more valuable. We already have established supply chains and processes to ensure what we need is available and can be provided quickly. It is this focus on proactiveness that led our team to develop the following plan that goes into effect 24 to 72 hours before severe weather hits the area:
“At the end of the day, very few companies in our area are considering hurricanes as a major threat,” says Gil Santaliz, NJFX CEO. “But hurricanes do hit the Northeast, and can have a major impact as the state of New Jersey experienced with Hurricane Sandy. But that is what sets us apart; we’re ready and dedicated to ensuring our customers, employees and vendors are prepared and safe.”
COVID-Protected and Ready
Our hurricane preparedness plan and protocols are in addition to the existing COVID-19 measures our team already put in place. We are checking temperatures upon entrance to the building, ensuring that all individuals entering have a mask, and are limiting the number of people present in the building to ensure proper social distancing. NJFX Access and Administrative Manager, Lisa Edelstein is also working to ensure the safety of NJFX employees and customers that need to be in the building, both during COVID and in case of a hurricane-related emergency. She has plans in place to send notices to customers on how NJFX is handling things in the event of a storm to keep our community informed, reassured, and updated throughout the event. She also oversees site access and limits building access as appropriate.
And while all operations-based preparedness measures are critical to avoiding any and all downtime, NJFX also puts an emphasis on giving our employees and customers peace of mind. The current global situation is stressful in and of itself, add a hurricane on top of that and things can get intense. We put our employees top of mind and want to ensure they are protected, safe and following safety protocols.
“Our priority is to make sure our employees and their families are okay above all else,” said Ryan Imkemeier, Cable Landing Station Manager. “If an employee’s family has to evacuate due to a storm, then they’ll want the peace of mind knowing that their family is safe and has a family readiness plan in place.”
This high level of preparedness is what sets NJFX apart. We consider these uncertainties before they become a true threat. Our team has orchestrated a “full-court press” with all team members to ensure that there is no impact in the case of an emergency. And this planning is all the more important during times that are already uncertain and stressful without the presence of severe weather. The NJFX team is prepared and here to help.
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.
Operating the NJFX CLS Campus The new connection to NJFX’s Carrier-Neutral Meet-Me-Room enhances connectivity options in the U.S. for Lightower’s domestic and international customer base
NJFX to Discuss Edge Computing and the Future of Data Centers at IMN’s 7th Annual Provider Forum, October 18 in Santa Rosa, CA October 5,
NJFX to Share Insight on the Changing Data Center Landscape at Capacity North America, October 5-6 in Toronto October 3, 2016 WALL, NJ – October
NJFX EXPANDS COLOCATION CAMPUS WITH TIER 3 BY THE SUBSEA November 21, 2016 New Jersey Fiber Exchange (NJFX), the first Tier 3 carrier-neutral colocation campus
Telecom Ramblings: Industry Spotlight: Gil Santaliz on NJFX’s “Tier 3 by the Subsea” November 21, 2016 Today a new data center is coming online in
Submarine Telecoms Forum: Tata Communications Partners with NJFX for Colocation Services September 15, 2016 WALL, NJ – New Jersey Fiber Exchange (NJFX), the first Tier
Hurricane Preparedness in the Age of COVID-19 Read More »
200 Students Attend Presentation on Internet Infrastructure Careers
May 28, 2020
Wall Township, NJ – As the economy changes course, we see many different trends emerging. Careers that were attractive pre-pandemic may not be as enticing today. Many kids in high school and post secondary schools are shifting their focus to jobs that withstand economic uncertainty. Among them: the connections that have been keeping all of us online. The internet did not break. It is strong and resilient and reliable enough to withstand a major global shift to a remote workforce and student body. The largest factor contributing to this, is the infrastructure in place that keeps us connected: the plumbing of the internet.
It was the topic of a virtual career presentation hosted by NJFX recently. Panelists included new “virtual” intern Amanda Kadunce, a marketing student at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). Amanda joined NJFX on May 18th and will assist in a wide variety of projects including sales and marketing initiatives. She is the first intern at NJFX who will be working 100% remotely. NJFX was pleased to accommodate this unique internship for unique times.
NJFX General Manager Felix Seda, recently named to Capacity Media’s “Power 100” list, was also a panelist. “Many companies have canceled their internship programs, but we have found that this new reality can enable more opportunities for young people who do not have to be in close, physical proximity to the workplaces that employ them for a great learning experience,” states Seda. “In addition, being able to bring her experience to younger kids was a great first project for Amanda to dive into.”
“I enjoyed being available to mentor students who are exploring careers, as I am currently. I am only a few steps ahead of them and I hope they were able to relate some of my experiences to their own decision making,” adds Amanda Kadunce, NJFX intern.
Sarah Kurtz, Business Development Manager was also part of the presentation. Each of the panelists provided information about the internet infrastructure industry, including details about NJFX’s CLS colocation campus.
More than 200 students with interest in STEM, business and marketing attended the presentation. “This was a great opportunity for our students to learn more about careers available that they may have not known existed, as well as personal insight from three NJFX representatives in various stages of their careers,” comments Sean Cronin, Assistant Principal and Supervisor for the Math and Science Departments at Matawan Regional High School. “The students had great questions and seemed engaged and interested in the topic.”
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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.
Operating the NJFX CLS Campus The new connection to NJFX’s Carrier-Neutral Meet-Me-Room enhances connectivity options in the U.S. for Lightower’s domestic and international customer base
NJFX to Discuss Edge Computing and the Future of Data Centers at IMN’s 7th Annual Provider Forum, October 18 in Santa Rosa, CA October 5,
NJFX to Share Insight on the Changing Data Center Landscape at Capacity North America, October 5-6 in Toronto October 3, 2016 WALL, NJ – October
NJFX EXPANDS COLOCATION CAMPUS WITH TIER 3 BY THE SUBSEA November 21, 2016 New Jersey Fiber Exchange (NJFX), the first Tier 3 carrier-neutral colocation campus
Telecom Ramblings: Industry Spotlight: Gil Santaliz on NJFX’s “Tier 3 by the Subsea” November 21, 2016 Today a new data center is coming online in
Submarine Telecoms Forum: Tata Communications Partners with NJFX for Colocation Services September 15, 2016 WALL, NJ – New Jersey Fiber Exchange (NJFX), the first Tier
A Shifting Economy Means a New Look at Majors, Job Outlook Post High School Read More »
As we realize connecting virtually is crucial to our current reality, we understand the infrastructure enabling that connection has never been more important. Today, solid network infrastructure with reliable and diverse paths is not a “nice to have”, it’s a must-have.
Originally published by Data Center Dynamics on May 18, 2020.
WALL TOWNSHIP, NJ – In the past, we might have seen a need to reroute or redirect traffic for a brief period. Disaster recovery companies were the norm, providing an alternative for a day or two. Hurricane Sandy, which hit the US east coast back in 2012, taught us that having a network route around New York could offer much needed increased resiliency, and that was eye-opening. Today, the game plan is not “what is my back up plan for the next two days?”, but “where do I go for the next three months?”
Carriers need to re-route traffic and it must be working from the DR sites. Or, consider if you have a remote workforce, do you have a plan for your US employees to interact with your Frankfurt and London offices, using your home internet connection? It still needs to be secure. It still needs to go through a centralized data center on both sides of the pond. Again, all the employees have to be able to get into those data centers via home modems to make sure traffic can then go across the subsea cables between Europe and the United States.
Avoiding single points of failure
So, keeping this all mind, we should be wondering whether the carriers and multinational enterprises truly know how their networks are orchestrated so they can avoid single points of failure. If you have an international or domestic network issue, but you don’t know how your network has been routed or you don’t know how you access your subsea cable, you really can’t have confidence in your network reliability.
Now more than ever, we need to know how our networks work. We need cable diversity, both terrestrially and at the subsea level. If, for example, the U.S. pandemic epicenter – New York City – will be under quarantine for an extended period and you potentially need to re-route your traffic, what do you do? Do you know who to call and can you count on them to be able to do it? Hopefully, someone on your team thought through the ‘what-ifs’, put it into the network agreements so that re-routes could be done without having to physically travel to lower Manhattan.
The NY metro area survived 9/11, but with all the major carrier hotels in one concentrated area, it was a challenge. Back then, we were all focused on it. We said we can never let that happen again. So, many of the data centers went to New Jersey. Then, Hurricane Sandy hit, and we said we have to make sure we have alternate sites and alternate ways to do things. But they left all the international communications — the subsea system network hubs — in NYC. The data was sitting outside NYC, but all the important interconnection points for the global networks were left in Lower Manhattan. Legacy subsea systems, the ones built between 1999 and 2004, are still handing off 85 percent of their traffic through Lower Manhattan. That’s a staggering amount of voice and data concentrated in one area.
However, companies like DE-CIX are expanding beyond the original lower Manhattan hub. The company offers peering by having a point-of-presence in 15 facilities in and around the Tri-State area, creating a metro ring of service for ISPs.
“Our model relies on distribution. The more facilities we can enable and all to the same virtual platform, the better. From the customer’s perspective, it is extremely important for all types of networks. While you may be physically shut in, you are digitally free and it has never been more obvious that freedom is crucial and must be delivered reliably,” states Ivo Ivanov, COO of DE-CIX. “Every single type of network wants to rely on this, streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime, collaboration platforms like WebEx and Zoom, gaming platforms, financial services, healthcare and supply chain. The beauty is in the diversity. We need this diverse and robust ecosystem to grow.”
In this current crisis, 80 percent of all major US providers are present at NJFX. In my mind, the world’s fastest-growing internet exchange, DE-CIX, is leading the way. We have some of the previous challenges covered, such as having control of the property, fiber points and entry manholes, along with an ecosystem consisting of seven independent facility-based terrestrial telecommunications operators (some with dual underground systems), four physical subsea cables with SLTE gear – all interconnecting three continents. The largest internet operators are all present.
Hunter Newby, Owner of Newby Ventures was one of the original architects of the modern colocation facility with meet-me rooms, cross-connects and network interconnection all in one place. “Change is the only constant. This is an evolution, not a journey, it doesn’t end with one thing. I was around when (the last round of) new subsea cables were being built. The next generation is coming, and it’s logical that the new subsea cables may not be terminating in the same facilities on the east coast,” comments Newby. “There must be vision and foresight as we plan for the next generation of connectivity.”
The beauty of the telecoms industry is that it is always evolving. Through collaboration, strong partnerships and leveraging new architecture models we, as an industry, can better prepare and ensure continuity of global communications. No matter what may come our way. The future is bright, let’s work together.
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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.
Operating the NJFX CLS Campus The new connection to NJFX’s Carrier-Neutral Meet-Me-Room enhances connectivity options in the U.S. for Lightower’s domestic and international customer base
NJFX to Discuss Edge Computing and the Future of Data Centers at IMN’s 7th Annual Provider Forum, October 18 in Santa Rosa, CA October 5,
NJFX to Share Insight on the Changing Data Center Landscape at Capacity North America, October 5-6 in Toronto October 3, 2016 WALL, NJ – October
NJFX EXPANDS COLOCATION CAMPUS WITH TIER 3 BY THE SUBSEA November 21, 2016 New Jersey Fiber Exchange (NJFX), the first Tier 3 carrier-neutral colocation campus
Telecom Ramblings: Industry Spotlight: Gil Santaliz on NJFX’s “Tier 3 by the Subsea” November 21, 2016 Today a new data center is coming online in
Submarine Telecoms Forum: Tata Communications Partners with NJFX for Colocation Services September 15, 2016 WALL, NJ – New Jersey Fiber Exchange (NJFX), the first Tier
In the Eye of the Storm: Planning for the necessary shift of global networks Read More »
Sofia, Bulgaria – 18th May 2020: NetIX, the leading global distributed platform for connectivity and peering services is proud to announce it has solidified its partnership with leading New Jersey data centre, NJFX, and has now brought it fully on-net by installing equipment in the facility.
NetIX selected NJFX for its unparalleled global connectivity from the East Coast. As the only Cable Landing Station (CLS) colocation campus in the U.S offering Tier 3, carrier-neutral data centre capabilities, NJFX is directly connected to the landing station providing direct routes across the Atlantic to access European traffic and down to South America to access traffic from Latin America.
“We are excited to have an award-winning Internet Exchange like NetIX in our facility,” commented Gil Santaliz, Founder and CEO of NJFX. He continued, “our partnership with NetIX will offer so many opportunities to our tenants who want to access global solutions and a global network simply, quickly and through one cross connect from one location.”
“We are thrilled to have NJFX as a new Point of Presence (PoP) on our global network”, said Neven Dilkov, founder of NetIX. “We always want to offer as much choice as possible to our customers into high quality facilities, and help them improve their coverage and reach, but similarly we’re looking forward to helping East Coast-located networks improve their reach across Europe where we are a leading player in the marketplace.”
NJFX tenants will be able to connect onto NetIX’s global network giving access via a single port to the full portfolio of solutions including the Global Internet Exchange blending over 30 IXPs and 140+ members of traffic together, DDoS protection solutions including the newly launched Smart Blackholing service, and Audio/Video streaming services.
About NetIX
Our next-generation network accelerates the Internet; we connect content creators with users faster, cheaper, and more directly than ever.
Our network stretches across more than 150 global data centres in 65 cities from 35 countries. It connects our 140+ members to content from 6,000+ visible networks and 30+ Internet Exchanges.
NetIX offers the best possible Internet connectivity: our members can directly exchange traffic with peers, giving their end-users faster page-load times on 90% of the most popular sites.
Our members include Internet service providers, broadcasters, telecoms operators, and content delivery networks – all the peers your tenants need to access!
About NJFX
NJFX owns and operates a 64,800 square foot purpose-built Tier 3 Cable Landing Station (CLS) Colocation facility and 58-acre campus in Wall, NJ. This unique campus is the only carrier-neutral CLS colocation campus in the U.S supported by several route-independent carriers that offer direct access to multiple independent subsea cable systems interconnecting North America, Europe, South America and the Caribbean. The facility offers direct access to TGN1, TGN2, and Seabras. The building is the subsea cable landing of HAVFRUE/AEC2 this year as well as Wall-LI in the future. High and low-density colocation solutions are available with 24/7 support.
For NJFX media inquiries, please contact: [email protected]
Expanding Its Global Ecosystem and Bringing the World Closer Together
May 11, 2020
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 that Cogent Communications, one of the world’s largest internet service providers, has established its presence at the NJFX CLS campus.
As a multinational, Tier-1 facilities-based ISP, Cogent Communications is consistently ranked as one of the top five backbone networks in the world. The company specializes in providing businesses with high speed internet access, Ethernet transport and operates one of the largest and highest capacity IP networks in existence.
“Cogent is focused on expanding its network to get businesses the internet connectivity they need, especially at times like these when the world is counting on the power of the internet for everything we do to live, work, learn, entertain and communicate,” comments Dave Schaeffer, Founder and CEO for Cogent Communications. “Being in a carrier-neutral facility such as the NJFX Cable Landing Station campus is very important to us, as we believe competition between carriers is good for both the industry and end-users. We look forward to growing our presence at the NJFX CLS as it ties locations together from around the world and offers reliable and redundant network options.”
“NJFX welcomes Cogent to our telecommunications ecosystem and looks forward to further collaboration and expanding options to power global communications,” comments Gil Santaliz, Founder and CEO of NJFX. “Bringing the world closer together, through strong telecom partnerships showcases the advantage that lies in carriers interconnecting. Even though we have to be physically apart during this pandemic, now, more than ever, our communications are more critical. The connections between people can still occur and bring us all together.”
“Cogent chose to have a presence at NJFX to reach more markets and more customers, all with reliability in mind. By connecting in multiple locations, we can not only address our clients’ bandwidth capacity requirements, but further ensure reliability and access to redundant options if ever needed, ”Schaeffer continues.
Serving over 205 markets across 46 countries, the Cogent network spans 58,000 intercity route miles and over 36,000 metro fiber miles.
NJFX CLS campus offers access to four subsea cable systems and seven independent U.S. fiber-based backhaul providers, enabling a carrier-neutral marketplace and providing multiple options for route diversity, availability, reliability and security.
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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.
Stay informed with the latest press releases, industry news, and more.
The online event is a confluence of the technology and business that enables online publishers to reach audiences at scale
General Manager
May 4, 2020
In this brave new virtual world, even the less than tech-savvy are finding the need to embrace a digital way of life. Whether it is a video conference, telehealth appointment or virtual classroom, companies and even individual Americans, are diving into an accelerated digital transformation of their lives. Just a few months ago, commuters caused highways to fill bumper to bumper with cars. Today, the traffic jams are on the internet, with spikes and increases in usage, all being delivered on home ISPs versus robust on-site infrastructure complete with an IT department.
The challenge has been providing that enterprise-level of connectivity to a home-based workforce. Secondarily, is the increased traffic in entertainment services, gaming, streaming, and the like, due to stay home directives. Both will no doubt be a major topic of discussion at the Content Delivery Summit.
The one-day Content Delivery Summit is “a featured online event at Streaming Media East Connect 2020”. The Summit serves as a unique opportunity for infrastructure leaders at all layers of the internet “stack”, to meet. Goals include ensuring alignment and attaining a complete picture of the largest distributed compute networks and service platforms in the world.
NJFX General Manager Felix Seda will be part of the panel that builds off the keynote address and kicks off the day. According to the event agenda, “the session will focus on the real-world availability of the fundamental infrastructure services that underpin all CDN operations, as well as the complexities to consider when deploying POPs around the world.”
The panel includes:
To register for the event, please click here.
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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.
Operating the NJFX CLS Campus The new connection to NJFX’s Carrier-Neutral Meet-Me-Room enhances connectivity options in the U.S. for Lightower’s domestic and international customer base
NJFX to Discuss Edge Computing and the Future of Data Centers at IMN’s 7th Annual Provider Forum, October 18 in Santa Rosa, CA October 5,
NJFX to Share Insight on the Changing Data Center Landscape at Capacity North America, October 5-6 in Toronto October 3, 2016 WALL, NJ – October
NJFX EXPANDS COLOCATION CAMPUS WITH TIER 3 BY THE SUBSEA November 21, 2016 New Jersey Fiber Exchange (NJFX), the first Tier 3 carrier-neutral colocation campus
Telecom Ramblings: Industry Spotlight: Gil Santaliz on NJFX’s “Tier 3 by the Subsea” November 21, 2016 Today a new data center is coming online in
Submarine Telecoms Forum: Tata Communications Partners with NJFX for Colocation Services September 15, 2016 WALL, NJ – New Jersey Fiber Exchange (NJFX), the first Tier
NJFX Weighs in on Scaling Content Delivery at Virtual Summit Read More »
CEO
April 14, 2020
NJFX’s CLS campus is serving as an international model for subsea connectivity. A delegation of officials from the South American countries of Chile and Ecuador visited the campus earlier this year to learn more about achieving an optimal model of interconnection for future projects. The delegation visited the campus before the COVID-19 crisis in the U.S., and since NJFX is a designated critical infrastructure site, we quickly became even busier – implementing emergency response plans, enacting additional safety measures, helping our clients augment their capacity and offering free cross-connects so that clients can deploy diversity within their networks. As we reflect on the past month, we think it’s time to share a positive side of why we engineered and designed the NJFX CLS campus in the way we did and how it has become an example for other countries. All of this, in the spirit of building resilient ecosystems that our entire industry can use for collaboration, advancement and innovation.
Considered a reverse trade mission, the visit was part of a delegation to the United States facilitated by the U.S. Trade and Development Agency. The mission was in large part a feasibility study for a planned project to connect the west coast of South America to Asia via subsea cable. This project has been dubbed the “Asia South America Digital Gateway”.
The goals include assisting Chilean and Ecuadorian government decision-makers to better grasp considerations such as best practices and factors to consider when selecting telecommunications service and technology providers. The added benefit for the U.S. is positioning American providers in these markets for new projects. NJFX was chosen as a facility to highlight by the organizers of the trade delegation because of its strategic location and proximity to New York City.
Mike Sauer, VP Americas Partner & Federal for Aqua Comms met with the group and discussed why Aqua Comms made the choice to land its Havfrue/AEC-2 subsea cable for its partners, such as Facebook and Google at NJFX. John Hayduk, formerly COO for Tata Communications, now a partner of NJFX, also presented and met with the delegation.
“We are pleased to know that NJFX is being looked at as an industry standard when it comes to an interconnected CLS campus. Our location just outside of congested New York, but still within 60 miles of one of the most active telecommunications hubs in the world, is crucial to our day-to-day operations,” commented Sarah Kurtz, NJFX’s Business Development Manager. “Members of the delegation were most interested in facility operations, as well as security and backup power systems.”
The delegation also met with U.S. government agencies, regulators, financing organizations, industry associations, and U.S. technology and equipment providers. Members focused on U.S. best practices in cable system design, manufacturing, installation, and regulation. Also top of mind were the technologies, services, and financing mechanisms to support subsea cable project development and implementation.
Delegation member Natalia López is the Head of the Telecommunications Development Fund Division for the government of Chile, working to drive initiatives to improve the Chile’s telecommunications infrastructure. She is leading the Asia South America Digital Gateway Project.
“We learned a lot about considerations for power, backup power, location and more,” stated López. “We found our tour of the NJFX facility enlightening and fascinating. It’s truly a unique campus with access to several subsea and terrestrial routes.”
LATAM is a growing market for connectivity. NJFX’s team is highly engaged and invested in the growth throughout Central/South America. The NJFX team also met with other industry leaders at Capacity LATAM 2020 to discuss the latest trends and challenges for the region – as showcased on conference panels including:
NJFX continues to drive innovation and help its carriers and subsea provider clients build their networks with maximum diversity at both the terrestrial and subsea level, avoiding traditional bottlenecks and highly congested areas such as NYC metro and Miami. For more information, visit www.njfx.net.
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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.
Operating the NJFX CLS Campus The new connection to NJFX’s Carrier-Neutral Meet-Me-Room enhances connectivity options in the U.S. for Lightower’s domestic and international customer base
NJFX to Discuss Edge Computing and the Future of Data Centers at IMN’s 7th Annual Provider Forum, October 18 in Santa Rosa, CA October 5,
NJFX to Share Insight on the Changing Data Center Landscape at Capacity North America, October 5-6 in Toronto October 3, 2016 WALL, NJ – October
NJFX EXPANDS COLOCATION CAMPUS WITH TIER 3 BY THE SUBSEA November 21, 2016 New Jersey Fiber Exchange (NJFX), the first Tier 3 carrier-neutral colocation campus
Telecom Ramblings: Industry Spotlight: Gil Santaliz on NJFX’s “Tier 3 by the Subsea” November 21, 2016 Today a new data center is coming online in
Submarine Telecoms Forum: Tata Communications Partners with NJFX for Colocation Services September 15, 2016 WALL, NJ – New Jersey Fiber Exchange (NJFX), the first Tier
An interview with Gil Santaliz, NJFX CEO, conducted by SubCableWorld
CEO
April 9, 2020
Editor’s Note: Submarine cables are a critical infrastructure even during normal times, but as the world deals with the Coronavirus and COVID-19, the global submarine fiber optic cable network takes on an even greater importance.
As SubCableWorld has noted, the U.S. government has identified workers at submarine cable landing stations and cable depots, as well as cable ships crews, as essential during this crisis because making sure that global Internet traffic continues to flow is essential as well.
With this backdrop, we wanted to speak with Gil Santaliz, CEO of NJFX, which operates a combined cable landing/colocation campus in Wall, New Jersey. We wanted to get his views on how the pandemic is impacting his company, especially given its proximity to New York State, which has been hard hit by COVID-19, and New York City, with its massive telecom market, as well as the broader questions of disaster recovery and the activity level of the industry. The following are his comments:
Mr. Santaliz: NJFX is still working in this time of crisis. We’re not on lockdown, we’re installing customers every day. In fact, there are three major installations going on right now [at the time of the interview]. We’re at Stage Yellow, as we call it. We’re monitoring the movement of people more closely.
Inside, what we’ve done is taken extra precautions to separate employees from vendors coming into the building — separate bathrooms, run temperature checks for people coming in, filling out forms explaining that you’ve not been exposed to anyone with COVID-19. We’ve taken lots of precautions. We got lucky because the building was designed in such a way that you don’t touch anything when you come in — it’s all card keys with automatic faucets, soap dispensers, hand dryers, etc. I’m not going to say it was done on purpose, but we’re lucky that there are not a lot of surfaces that you touch at NJFX, so everyone goes straight to their space and when you finish your work, you leave the building.
What we’re seeing during this pandemic is that every multinational organization has put in place their disaster recovery (DR) plans. Their employees are working either from their homes or are being asked to go to their DR sites. They’re creating quadrants of employees; basically telling them who goes where and we’re seeing this at NJFX. We’re seeing traffic being re-routed. How do I get that DR site the kind of IP it needs? Remember, those sites really were meant to be a place to work from for two or three days, not three or four months.
In the 1990s, companies like Comdisco existed and they were the places that people could go to for a day or two. Hurricane Sandy taught us that this could last for a long time and that was eye-opening – wow, it lasted two weeks. And now the game plan is “where do I go for the next three months?” You have to re-route traffic and it has to be working from the DR sites. Or, if you have your employees at home, did you ever plan for your New York employees to interact with your Frankfurt and London offices, but they’re all going to be at home? It still needs to be secure. It still needs to go through a centralized data center on both sides of the pond. Again, all of the employees have to get into those data centers and then go across the cables between Europe and the United States.
Did they know how their networks were orchestrated so they could change them? If you have an international or domestic issue, but you don’t know how your network works or you don’t know which cable your traffic uses, you really can’t make decisions on re-orchestrating what you have. Now more than ever, we need to know how our networks work. You know you have cable diversity terrestrially and you know you have cable diversity at the subsea level, but if New York City will be suffering potential issues for a period of time and you have to re-route your traffic, what do you do? Do you know who to call and that they are going to do it? Hopefully, you will because someone thought “I may need to do this someday” and put it into the agreements and built it into the infrastructure so that it could be done dynamically or by dialing in because guess what, I can’t travel to NYC anymore. I’m not allowed to go in and move things around. I can’t coordinate the way I did before. So your plan had to think that through – that people can’t move around easily any longer.
Unfortunately, things are not going to get better. Are you ready to lose a major PoP and if you do, can the other PoPs take over? The example that keeps coming up is NYC. It survived 9/11 and back then we were all focused on it. We said we can never let that happen again. So, many of the data centers went to New Jersey. Then Hurricane Sandy happened and we said we have to make sure we have alternate sites and alternate ways to do things. But they left all of the international communications — the subsea systems and backhaul — in NYC. The data was sitting outside NYC, but all the important interconnection points for the global networks were left in Lower Manhattan. Now, once again we have a major issue where getting to Lower Manhattan is a problem and the legacy subsea systems, the ones built between 1999 and 2004, are still handing off 85% of their traffic through Lower Manhattan.
We have several customers that have been quick on their feet. For example, Aqua Comms has a wholesale model only, as opposed to others. The benefits of that is that if you sign a contract with three or four national providers that come into NJFX, then you can have thousands of customers running across the Havfrue transatlantic system in a couple of days. They have the MSA paperwork with everyone, they have the backhaul – it’s all in place.
We also have a customer, Bulk Infrastructure, who has large customers via a spectrum ownership model. They turn up those customers and they’re up and running in just a matter of days because of the scale of their operations. Bulk has been public about Amazon Web Services being their customer and Aqua Comms is the landing party for its partners, such as Facebook and Google on the Havfrue system, and can also turn their capacity on immediately.
Migrating customers from one cable system to the next requires lots of planning. TAT-14 will be retired at the end of the year, so everyone is planning on moving their capacity over. The natural cable that they’d move it to is Havfrue/AEC-2, because it lands in the same place in Denmark so you can use the backhaul and your existing systems. All you have to do is take your couple of hundred Gigabits and find a home on Havfrue through Aqua Comms or Bulk and off you go.
The other cables that land at NJFX are TGN-1 and TGN-2. They were built by TyCom back in 2004. They have thousands of customers and Terabits of capacity, but it’s no secret that most of that capacity goes through NYC. Seabras-1, a Seaborn cable of which TI Sparkle owns half of the fibers, runs to Brazil non-stop bypassing the hurricane activity in the Caribbean, but they too initially had all their traffic going to NYC. Now, they’re handing off traffic at NJFX, rightfully so, because we have a community of carriers that can buy from there. As mentioned, we also have the Havfrue cable that is going RFS soon. They have their gear ready to go at NJFX so they can offload customers by working with their carrier community.
Meanwhile, NJFX is prepared and working through this crisis and helping our carrier and subsea clients augment network architectures where needed. We’re still active, still working, nothing has changed. We’re just monitoring more closely across every level.
Read the original article on SubCableWorld’s website.
Also published in Ocean New’s and Technology’s May 2020 Edition!
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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.
Operating the NJFX CLS Campus The new connection to NJFX’s Carrier-Neutral Meet-Me-Room enhances connectivity options in the U.S. for Lightower’s domestic and international customer base
NJFX to Discuss Edge Computing and the Future of Data Centers at IMN’s 7th Annual Provider Forum, October 18 in Santa Rosa, CA October 5,
NJFX to Share Insight on the Changing Data Center Landscape at Capacity North America, October 5-6 in Toronto October 3, 2016 WALL, NJ – October
NJFX EXPANDS COLOCATION CAMPUS WITH TIER 3 BY THE SUBSEA November 21, 2016 New Jersey Fiber Exchange (NJFX), the first Tier 3 carrier-neutral colocation campus
Telecom Ramblings: Industry Spotlight: Gil Santaliz on NJFX’s “Tier 3 by the Subsea” November 21, 2016 Today a new data center is coming online in
Submarine Telecoms Forum: Tata Communications Partners with NJFX for Colocation Services September 15, 2016 WALL, NJ – New Jersey Fiber Exchange (NJFX), the first Tier
Now More than Ever, We Need to Know How Our Networks Work Read More »
March 25, 2020
When we hired our site access team, in-house electricians, critical infrastructure technicians, vendors, security team specialist, security outsource team and Cable Landing Station management, we explained that they worked at a mission critical facility, where one day we may need them to make sacrifices for the benefit of our critical infrastructure. At the time, the thought was it could be a hurricane, terrorist attack or even widespread power outage but the word “pandemic” never came up. We gave our team credentials designating them as Essential Employees with the State of New Jersey and explained it was a cautionary measure in case it was ever needed. Today, we are in the midst of a very fluid situation. With New Jersey currently having a stay at home order – we are prepared. When/if the situation changes again, our essential employees are prepared to travel to and from our facility with the proper credentials.
Our site access team is keeping the operations of NJFX in a consistent, reliable and steady state. We are busier than ever, assisting our clients and partners to deploy and augment their communication infrastructures during this time of increased bandwidth needs and to further ensure they have diverse, reliable routes in place. We added a new member to the operations team this week because we knew our bench would need to deepen as this crisis unfolds. Our team is busy getting customers installed with new fiber projects, cages and assisting vendors as they perform their preventative maintenance programs to ensure we are ready. These NJFX employees are the unsung heroes that don’t travel to conferences or coordinate events at the CLS Campus, they just keep everything operating smoothly to make sure our critical infrastructure is supported and protected so the rest of us can work from home, take virtual classes and even attend live streamed religious services.
These critical team members prefer to keep their anonymity and not be named or shown or recognized in any way, including for this article, but we wanted to say THANK YOU to all of them for doing what they do for us in our time of need. They have families, friends and full lives with varied interests. Today, they are at the NJFX CLS colocation campus, making all of us their priority during these uncertain times.
We say thank you to all of the essential employees at work today for making the sacrifice so our connected world can stay that way in a critical moment in time.
###
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.
Operating the NJFX CLS Campus The new connection to NJFX’s Carrier-Neutral Meet-Me-Room enhances connectivity options in the U.S. for Lightower’s domestic and international customer base
NJFX to Discuss Edge Computing and the Future of Data Centers at IMN’s 7th Annual Provider Forum, October 18 in Santa Rosa, CA October 5,
NJFX to Share Insight on the Changing Data Center Landscape at Capacity North America, October 5-6 in Toronto October 3, 2016 WALL, NJ – October
NJFX EXPANDS COLOCATION CAMPUS WITH TIER 3 BY THE SUBSEA November 21, 2016 New Jersey Fiber Exchange (NJFX), the first Tier 3 carrier-neutral colocation campus
Telecom Ramblings: Industry Spotlight: Gil Santaliz on NJFX’s “Tier 3 by the Subsea” November 21, 2016 Today a new data center is coming online in
Submarine Telecoms Forum: Tata Communications Partners with NJFX for Colocation Services September 15, 2016 WALL, NJ – New Jersey Fiber Exchange (NJFX), the first Tier
Critical Infrastructure, Critical Procedures, Our Unsung Heroes for Critical Times Read More »
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