Because I am a native of Philadelphia, I am very familar with the area and the history of certain commercial development areas. A few months ago, an outside firm started a Data Center Facility in the old Philadelphia Navy Yard. This is the worst place in Philadelphia to build a telecom facility. Since 1998, many local telecom companies have all looked at and passed on the Navy Yard. Why? For starters there is ZERO fiber optic access there. There aren’t even aerial poles. The copper service that does exists from the local LEC (Verizon) is underground and is heavily corrided due to flooding. Oh, yes, flooding, theres that too!
The new firm most likely took on a heavy expense of demarcing fiber into the building through the Navy Yard grounds. So they effectively have a single fiber entrance. Agauin, not ideal. Not very carrier diverse either since all the carriers will be on the same fiber trunks in the same conduit. And loop service access (DS-1 and DS-3 cross connects for MPLS) will be terrible.
Its a shame they didn’t reach out to local telecom experts, since the overwhelming concensus would have been to stay away from the Navy Yard. There are 3 solid carrier hotel buildings in Philly, all of which have diverse power, multiple diverse fiber entrance, and the list goes on. The Navy Yard was probably picked by this firm because off the low operating cost and tax incentives, but at the end of the day, not being in a true carrier diverse building will hurt over time.
Tags: Datacenter, Navy Yard, Philadelphia Technology Park, Telecom Facility
I had a tour with this provider, Philadelphia Technology Park. Facility isn’t bad, but the Navy Yard is terrible. The providers I looked at who are in Center City have much better access to carrier fiber and are much more redundant.
It looks like the Navy Yard may have already claimed its first victim… Tasty Cake. Tasty Cake was persuaded that the Navy Yard was the place to be, so they moved their operations there. Of course, they ran into major issues with the construction of the new bakery since the Navy Yard grounds are so terrible. All that money wasted, and now they’re in debt. I guarantee you that in a year or so, Philadelphia Technology Park will be out of business as well.
It is a bad idea to put a Data Center in an area where there is no Fiber Optics. Also when choosing a Data Center it should be Tier 1.