Williams Pens Deal with Colo.com

Glass-laying backbone builder teams up with optical hub-maker to enter data storage service market.

by Jim Wagner [November 7, 2000]

Williams Communications, a year ahead in its US intercity network deployment schedule, quickly penned an agreement this week with Colo.com for data center space in metropolitan areas nationwide.

The agreement marks the first of several planned deals between the backbone provider and facilities-based collocation companies.

By the end of this year the company expects to connect 125 cities with more than 33,000 route miles of fiber, prompting the backbone provider's search for facility-based collocation partnerships.

Going to demand
The Colo.com deal allows Williams to expand its services and maximize thruput on its fiber optic network from Dallas, Chicago, Boston and Seattle.

Brent Bomer, Williams senior manager of product marketing for IP and access services, said the agreement helps both companies attain goals set in their respective business plans.

"We're going where our customers want us to go," Bomer said. "Colo.com built its facilities in areas where there was a high demand for the services we both provide. We helped validate their business plan by proving they are carrier-neutral".

Bomer said Colo.com stood out as a best-of-breed company.

"Colo.com was at the top of that list and we plan on making more announcements in the coming weeks," Boomer said."This doesn't mean a shift in our strategy to only provide network services to large carriers, but expand on our existing strategy."

The backbone operator provides network services exclusively to carriers like SBC Communications and UUNET.

Williams, based in Tulsa, OK, is also building a glass-fed network that will connect the US to Asia and the US to Europe.

Glass penetration
Colo.com is a carrier-neutral collocation company that caters to competitive local exchange carriers, long-distance phone companies, Internet service providers and dot-com businesses.

Joe Turcotte, Willams network unit senior vice president of IP and access services, said the agreement gives his company deeper penetration into tier-one and tier-two markets.

"The additional facilities will complement our current data centers by giving us an additional vehicle to drive more traffic onto our award-winning network," Turcotte said.

"This agreement is fundamental to our local access strategy and is in direct response to our customers' needs for ready local access to our carrier-focused global network," Turcotte added. "The last mile to our customers is crucial as we complete the largest next-generation network in the United States and prepare to link that network with international gateways."

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