US-based FairPoint Communications has officially opened its second data center in New Hampshire.
The new facility in downtown Manchester will offer a total of 4,000 square feet (372 sq m) of data center space, and is designed for high density colocation services, ranging from half a rack to a full cage, on a pay-as-you-go basis. It also offers an on-site maintenance and troubleshooting service called Remote Hands. So far 2,200 square feet (204 sq m) is complete and the company will build a further 1,800 square feet soon.
The ribbon cutting ceremony was attended by the Mayor of Manchester Ted Gatsas.
“We are pleased that FairPoint chose Manchester as its newest data center location,” said Gatsas. “We have a vibrant downtown, exciting arts and culture and, of course, a supportive infrastructure for businesses. This data center opening builds on that foundation.”
The Granite State
FairPoint is a telecommunications business headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It offers broadband, television, unified communications and network services to residential and wholesale customers in 17 states.
The company entered the New England market in 2008 when it purchased Northern New England Spinco, a landline business previously owned by Verizon, for $2.4 billion.
The data center in Manchester is FairPoint’s second in New Hampshire, following a similar facility in the nearby city of Laconia, opened in June 2014.
The new data center supports high power densities of up to 150 watts per square foot, with fully redundant power feeds. It also provides access to FairPoint’s own fiber network built with 16,000 miles of cable, making it the largest in the region.
“At FairPoint, we work every day to be the 21st century telecommunications provider New Hampshire’s economy needs, and that Granite Staters want and deserve,” said Pat McHugh, FairPoint’s state president for New Hampshire.
“We have already made tremendous investments in New Hampshire. The additional $2.5 million we’ve invested in building this new data center and creating a team of employees dedicated to supporting our new Advanced Services signifies our commitment to continuing to support our community and evolve our services with the evolving needs of our customers.”
The company is already considering additional data center locations within its service area.
We should mention that FairPoint is in the middle of a dispute with its staff over benefits and layoffs. Nearly 2,000 of the company’s employees represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Communication Workers of America participated in a strike that lasted four months and ended in February 2015.