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. ...