Equinix Data Center CH1
Overview
Arvig goes to great lengths to maintain, improve, expand and further diversify its fiber network. Oftentimes reaching those great lengths requires going great distances, even branching out beyond Minnesota’s borders. Arvig’s partnership with a major Chicago data center is a leap forward in that effort—but its impact is more than a broader network footprint.
Challenge
Arvig’s fiber network has rapidly grown to more than 14,500 route miles,in no small part through strategic investments, stringent planning and targeted expansion goals. Still, challenges remain. The majority of Arvig’s fiber assets are in Minnesota, which can limit access to new markets and networking opportunities with telecommunications carriers and content providers. At the same time, demand for network capacity is increasing rapidly.
Opportunity
Together, those challenges are driving Arvig to scale its network to support new services and applications and create a better user experience for the company’s 63,000 business and residential internet customers. To address a big challenge, Arvig found a big solution.
Arvig is now co-located at the CH1 (350 E. Cermak Rd.) data center in Chicago. Data centers are powerful assets for fiber transport and internet service providers like Arvig—and this opportunity with Equinix is no different. It’s poised to open up massive potential for the Arvig network and customers.
Solution
The CH1 data center is home to numerous financial services companies, cloud service providers, content providers, IT service providers and enterprises. For Arvig customers, that means many additional networking opportunities are in easy reach.
Arvig now has the potential to connect its network with more than 150 telecommunications carriers, managed service providers and some of the world’s largest content providers, including Google, Amazon Web Services and Facebook.
Importantly, many of those enterprises don’t currently have a physical presence in Minnesota—no ability to connect their networks in state—until now. The data center offers direct access to Arvig’s fiber network, and along with it, a route to new customers in Minnesota.
Overall Network Impacts
Arvig’s expansion into Chicago has many other big impacts, not just to its existing network or future growth, but to its data center presence elsewhere. In summary:
- Arvig has engineered redundancy into its regional network to support better uptime. Arvig’s Minnesota regional presence allows it to provide protection for Ethernet services, and diversity for Wave services, connecting Minnesota, Chicago, and Omaha.
- Arvig’s regional network better protects all of Arvig’s internet customers through improved network diversity. Connecting Arvig customers to the internet in multiple locations eliminates the impact of catastrophic outages. Increased opportunities to peer with content networks and other service providers reduces latency and improves customer experience.
- Customers can leverage Arvig’s extensive fiber network to obtain Wave or Ethernet connectivity to Chicago. Arvig can deliver what has traditionally been known as the “last mile” from the many regions of Minnesota to their network at the Chicago data center. This delivers access to many managed service providers, cloud providers, and content providers that do not have a presence in Minnesota.
- For Arvig customers who have multiple locations in Illinois or Nebraska, Arvig can purchase connectivity from a carrier in those states and directly connect it back to the customer’s Minnesota locations, creating a private Wide Area Network (WAN).
- Arvig will continue to build upon its presence in Chicago and Omaha to extend the fiber network to other regional hub cities and markets, making it easier to connect with more carriers, service providers and end customers sites directly via fiber.
- Arvig can now provide cost effective and highly available Ethernet and Wave services—including transport circuits—between Minnesota, Omaha and Chicago.
