Fergie's Tech Blog

Google Taps Fiber with Manhattan Move

Steve Bryant writes on Google Watch:

Google's new Manhattan office sites atop one of the biggest fiberoptic facilities in North America.

I've been doing research for a separate project on Google's new offices in Manhattan, which I first reported about here. I can't reveal everything just yet, but I do have more details to report. Turns out 111 8th Avenue is one of the premier "carrier hotels" in the country, a 2.8-million-square-foot behemoth of a fiber gateway.

What's a carrier hotel? It's a very secure, very expensive location for firms that traffic in large amounts of data. 111 8th Avenue, it turns out, sits right on top of the Hudson Street-Ninth Avenue fiber highway. By moving into its new building, Google is gaining access to a nearly unlimited amount of bandwidth. The only other building in New York that has this kind of power is 60 Hudson Street. Suffice to say, the two are closely connected.

posted by Fergie @ 9/13/2006 12:03:00 PM