A New Telecom Business Model: Street Vault Interconnection

James Jun and his partners are classic American telecom entrepreneurs. They have built street vaults in Boston for cross connects. Carriers meet in the street to connect their networks for one time fees and an annual service charge. Their company was an ISP (Towardex) that transformed itself into a local infrastructure provider by building a dark fibre ring including conduits and these cross connect vaults. It is a powerful combination because customers can get dark fibre but also do mass cross connects using fusion splicing for one time fees. For example, carrier X can directly cross connect to carrier Y in the vault robbing the data centers of recurring cross connect revenue. Note the pristine condition of this under-the-street vault for interconnection. Clean, well organized, and no flooding. 

The street vault is directly connected to the major carrier conduit systems. Each plastic cover on the wall above is a conduit. Large carriers often require huge number of cross connects. This street vault is operated as a non-profit or public utility. You can think of carrier X in data center Y cross connecting to carrier U in data center V. Those are no recurring charges. Fusion splicing is generally how it done. There is one time for access to the vault for splicing and then an annual fee for maintenance. Since James' ISP, Towardex, has its metro ring fibre in the fault as well it has dramatically increased sales while the vault itself generates huge goodwill from the telecom community.