North American Network Operators Group
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Re: Local Loop Install.

  • From: Warren Kumari
  • Date: Fri Apr 28 18:37:11 2006

So, back in 1999 I'm working for this small ISP that decides they want to become a colo player and open a datacenter in White Plains, NY. We spend large amount of time with commercial real-estate people to find a building with a: some space and b: fiber into the building.

Eventually real estate person calls about a a suitable building (lots of power, cooling and space -- and a large fiber mux in the basement) -- the previous tenant had just vacated the building...

We rush over and have a look... The building look great, nice location, generators and even has a large area with raised floor, but we cannot find where the fiber comes in, nor the demarc area...
We call up the telco (Nynex at the time) and ask where this magic fiber is... The guy on the phone mumbles something about some room in the basement. We go have a look and find nothing, so we call him back -- he get annoyed and says he was the installer and is sure it is down there -- we have yet another look and nothing, so we call him again... He starts sounding REALLY frustrated and says he will be right over to show us where it is... 10 minutes later he arrives and storms into the building, muttering under his breath about stupid customers being so blind that the cannot find 2 racks worth of equipment...

We follow him down into the basement and he strides across to one of the room and throws open the door, saying "Look, you see, its over here -- uh --- what?! Where did it go?!"
Against the back wall there 1/2 an inch of conduit sticking through the wall -- we shine a flashlight down it and around 2 feet into the conduit we can just see a bit of cable...

Turns out when the previous tenant left, they abandoned some metal desks and the like in the building -- the building owner called in a scrap metal company and paid them to "cart all of this junk away" -- it would appear that sometime a large fiber mux looks like junk....

The sad part of this story (from our point!) is that rerunning the fiber would have involved retrenching across the busiest street in the city and so wouldn't be able to happen for 10-12 months -- thus ended our colo plans...

Warren

On Apr 26, 2006, at 8:31 PM, Derek J. Balling wrote:

Also bear in mind that after your lease expires, they might could very well be SOL if the new tenant decides "I don't want telco monstronsity in the space I'm paying for", and they'd have every right to simply rip it out (and possibly keep it, depending on your area's local landlord/tenant laws, as it would be considered "abandoned by the former tenant" [you]).

I'm not sure if you want to remind them of that, but I think it'd be good form for full disclosure, since they might get dozens of customers dependent on that hardware and suddenly have nowhere to put it if you ever decide to leave.

Cheers,
D


On Apr 26, 2006, at 4:23 PM, Aaron Gagnier wrote:


I personally don't see how it would be unreasonable to ask for something if they want to use your space that you're paying for. Myself I would ask for the discount on service and also try to get the install waived or at least reduced.

-ag

Robert Sherrard wrote:
I've got an interesting question / situation...
I've got a local loop provider that we're looking at using for some fiber connectivity. The long story is that there’s no real great place for them to place their gear in the entire building, sort of paying rent to the landlord, placing gear in our suite, or placing gear in an uncontrolled room , i.e. no cooling, no controlled access. This “local-loop” provider is asking to place this gear into our space… while this gear is to provide us with fiber connectivity back to a carrier hotel; they’re also looking to service other tenants in our building. It is unrealistic to ask this provider for some sort of a kickback, or monthly discount on service? They’re hitting us up for an install fee, maybe they could waive that? Anyone have some thoughts on this? Am I being unrealistic in thinking that, if they are going to profit by having gear in our space, we should expect to see a small return or favor? The only other option for them is to spend money and lease a small room, or modify an existing smaller room in the building to fit their needs.
Rob
--

Derek J. Balling
Systems Administrator
Vassar College
124 Raymond Ave
Box 13 - Computer Center 217
Poughkeepsie, NY 12604
(845) 437-7231
--
There are only 10 types of people in this world -- those who understand binary arithmetic and those who don't.