Ziply Fiber expects its new colocation services offering, launched today, to have strong appeal outside large metro areas, including in rural areas. Colocation services will be available in more than 200 Ziply central offices in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, explained Chris Gellos, general manager of commercial services for Ziply, in an interview with Telecompetitor.
“We replaced things that used to operate in a telco network with modern day fiber equipment with a smaller footprint,” said Gellos. “These would otherwise be stranded assets.”
Ziply will still use part of each central office (CO) for its own purposes, but the portion of the CO that Ziply doesn’t need will be available for the colocation services, and Ziply will customize the space with racks, cages or rooms in each CO according to customers’ needs.
The company already customized seven COs at the request of business customers that wanted colocation space. Over 200 more COs are ready for customization.
“We’re trying to build to suit,” Gellos said, adding that the company can do a quick turnaround because power and backup power are already in place and the facilities are already highly secure.
“They’re like fortresses,” he said.
Ziply Colocation Services
Ziply’s colocation offering will be more economical in comparison with those offered by traditional data center operators that are owned by real estate companies, Gellos said.
It’s also worth noting that Ziply undoubtedly will gain additional fiber connectivity revenue from customers purchasing the colocation services, as the customers will need to interconnect with other facilities.
Gellos also expects the offering to appeal to customers that want the convenience of having their equipment offsite but not far from their operations.
“Convenience is a big factor,” he said. “There is a growing need from businesses that want to store their equipment offsite in a secure facility… but they also want to be able to access that equipment.
“For a business that’s rural to have this type of capability, to not even have to drive across town, is something that we’ve found is resonating with customers.”
Gellos also expects to pick up some colocation business from mobile operators and even hyperscalers.
“There are a variety of use cases,” he said.
Ziply isn’t the only company looking to repurpose unneeded CO space. AT&T inked a deal with Frontier last year to collocate mobile network equipment in Frontier COs.
And AT&T itself sees repurposed COs playing a role in supporting its edge computing vision.
