Switch and Data Projects Higher Revenue
Colocation and interconnection specialist Switch and Data (SDXC) said it continues to see strong demand for its services, and raised its revenue guidance for 2008. The company said it expects 2008 revenue of $168 million, rather than the previous estimate of $158 million, and also hiked its EBITDA guidance from $51 million to $53 million.
Switch and Data's move comes a week after the other leading publicly-held colocation provider, Equinix (EQIX), also raised its revenue guidance and reported solid customer demand for data center space.
"Demand for our services is strong," said Keith Olsen, Switch and Data CEO and President, in the company's earnings call with analyst this afternoon. "Demand is outpacing supply (of colocation space) in our leading markets. IP traffic growth remains strong, driving greater need for our exchange points.
Switch and Data reported net income of $300,000 for the three months ended March 31, 2008, which included a loss of $700,000 related to the company's recent debt financing to fund its New Jersey data center expansion.
Posted by Rich Miller 
April 29, 2008 | Permalink | Newsletter
April 01, 2008
Switch & Data Gets Funding for NJ Data Center
Switch and Data (SDXC) said Monday that it lined up $157.5 million in debt financing from a syndicate of banks led by RBC Capital Markets and GE Corporate Lending. The financing fully funds Switch and Data’s expansion, including its lease of a major data center in North Bergen, New Jersey.
The 163,500 square foot New Jersey data center is seen as key to the company's growth. Delays in finalizing the funding for the project brought questions from securities analysts in the company's quarterly conference call Feb. 20. But Switch and Data executives said the debt financing remained on track, despite the recent challenges in the credit markets.
Posted by Rich Miller April 01, 2008 | Permalink | Newsletter
February 26, 2008
Voxel Expands in Switch & Data Facilities
Voxel dot Net has expanded its content delivery network (CDN) with new installations in several data centers operated by Switch & Data (SDXC), the companies said today. Voxel dot Net, which provides managed hosting and IP services, has located equipment at Switch and Data’s PAIX Palo Alto and has expanded its presence in the company’s PAIX at 111 8th Avenue in New York site. The deployments will support the rapid growth of Voxel’s managed hosting and VoxCAST Media Delivery services.
Voxel chose the PAIX Palo Alto and 111 8th Avenue sites to take advantage of the facilities' densely interconnected data centers, which support the company's need for international content delivery.
"Voxel ensures high-performance and reliability for our customers by having a scalable presence at key Internet hubs," said Adam Rothschild, Voxel’s VP of Network Architecture. "Having multiple locations is also critical to guarding against outages, and Switch and Data’s Palo Alto and New York PAIX sites give us bi-coastal redundancy and provide necessary direct peering access to thousands of networks."
Posted by Rich Miller February 26, 2008 | Permalink | Newsletter
February 21, 2008
Switch & Data Shares Slump After Earnings
Shares of Switch and Data (SDXC) lost 20 percent of their value Wednesday in the first session of trading after the colocation and peering specialist reported strong earnings for the final quarter of 2007. On Tuesday afternoon Switch and Data announced revenues for the three months ended Dec. 31, 2007 of $29.1 million, a 29 percent improvement over the same period in 2006. Net income was $2.48 million, or seven cents per share.
Shares of Switch and Data fell $2.37 to $9.28 on Wednesday, a decline of 20.3 percent. SDXC stock was up slightly to $9.54 in early trading Thursday.
In the company's quarterly conference call Tuesday afternoon, several analysts inquired about debt financing to build out a large New Jersey data center that Switch and Data has leased. The 163,500 square foot building in North Bergen, New Jersey is seen as key to the company's growth. But Switch and Data executives said the debt financing - a bank credit line estimated at $140 to $160 million - is on track and expected to be close without incident, despite the current challenges in the credit markets.
"We have strong support from our bankers for our debt financing, and we anticipate closing in March," said CFO George Pollock. "We have several commitments from our lead banks." Pollock said that while there has been volatility in the credit markets, "the pricing is in line with our expectations."
Posted by Rich Miller February 21, 2008 | Permalink | Newsletter
February 19, 2008
Switch & Data PAIX Sites Get Routing Tools
Customers at six Switch and Data facilities will get free access to Internet performance analysis tools from Renesys Corporation, the two companies have announced. Renesys tools provide an analysis of which network service providers have the most or fewest networks available within one hop of a company's peering infrastructure, simplifying assessment of potential peers. The service will be available to Switch and Data (SDXC) customers in the data centers with PAIX Internet exchanges, which are located in Atlanta, Dallas, New York, Northern Virginia, San Francisco and Seattle.
"Renesys is a market leader in intelligent routing and market analysis tools for Internet service and content providers," said Ernie Sampera, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Switch and Data. "This enhancement to our PAIX Internet Exchange should enable our customers to improve their performance and deliver accurate insights to facilitate their peering relationships."
Posted by Rich Miller February 19, 2008 | Permalink | Newsletter
January 23, 2008
Switch & Data, Interxion to Partner
Switch and Data (SDXC) and Interxion have agreed to jointly market their carrier-neutral data center and interconnection services across North America and Europe, the two companies said today. The partnership will make it easier for both providers to arrange space for customers who require colocation and interconnection services in both Europe and the United States.
The deal appears to be a competitive response to the growth of Equinix (EQIX), a carrier-neutral exchange point specialist which acquired IXEurope last fall, providing it with facilities in major Internet markets on both sides of the Atlantic.
The agreement positions the sales teams at Switch and Data and Interxion to offer colocation space and content distribution across 56 data centers worldwide. Switch and Data has more than 880 customers in 34 data centers in markets around the United States. Interxion has 22 data centers in 11 countries across Europe, and provides services for more than 1,000 companies.
"Switch and Data and Interxion can now offer customers the broadest and most diverse co-location, Internet exchange and interconnection solutions in both North America and Europe," said Ernie Sampera, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Switch and Data. "We are excited to be able to offer Interxion’s extensive footprint across Europe and strong technical support to our customers and give them an integrated solution to expand their businesses into new global markets."
Posted by Rich Miller January 23, 2008 | Permalink | Newsletter
January 15, 2008
Indonesian ISP Peers with Switch & Data
One of Indonesia's leading ISPs has established a peering point with Switch and Data (SDXC), the company said today. Biznet says it is the first Indonesian operator to set up direct peering in the United States, which will reduce transit time between the countries and accelerate the performance of U.S. and other global websites in Indonesia.
Switch Data’s its PAIX Internet exchange in its Palo Alto, Calif. data center will be the main interconnection point for all of Biznet’s traffic to and from North America. PAIX was one of the world’s first commercial Internet exchanges and is one of the most densely interconnected peering points in the world.
With 235 million residents, Indonesia is the world’s fourth most populous country, with about 20 million Internet users, which is equivalent to about 9% of the population. Internet usage in Indonesia is estimated to have grown by about 25 percent from 2005 to 2006
Posted by Rich Miller January 15, 2008 | Permalink | Newsletter
November 06, 2007
Switch and Data Leases North Jersey Site
Switch and Data (SDXC) has leased a 163,500 square foot building in North Bergen, New Jersey to expand its data center network. The building is currently a data center for Sungard Availability Services, a disaster recovery specialist. Sungard's lease expires Jan. 31, after which Switch & Data will take over the facility, according to lease documents filed with the SEC.
Switch and Data said in April that it expected to add 1,000 cabinets to its data center footprint in 2007, primarily by building out expansion space in existing sites. An example of that approach is the company's recent expansion at the Infomart, a carrier hotel in Dallas where Switch and Data already leased space.
The lease of the Sungard facility is a slight departure from that approach, but consistent with the company's plan to avoid new construction projects. The new facility provides Switch and Data with substantial expansion capacity for 2008 in a key business and connectivity market. The company has data centers at three carrier hotels in New York - 60 Hudson Street, 111 Eighth Avenue and 65 Broadway.
Posted by Rich Miller November 06, 2007 | Permalink | Newsletter
October 31, 2007
Broadvox Expands in 9 Switch & Data Sites
Colocation and interconnection specialist Switch and Data (SDXC) said this week that VoIP services provider Broadvox has expanded its presence in Switch and Data facilities in nine markets. The additional space in data centers in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Seattle, and Tampa will help Broadvox keep pace with VoIP growth.
"Switch and Data gives us extensive geographic reach and will allow us to immediately expand our new Broadvox GO! SIP Trunking product line into new markets nationwide," said Sergey Galchenko, Chief Technology Officer for Broadvox. "We can drive down costs and enable the rollout of new enhanced IP voice services to our customers by being closer to call origination and termination points and eliminating unnecessary VoIP/TDM conversions."
The deal demonstrates how VoIP growth is continuing to generate demand for data center services. The telecom research firm TeleGeography reports that U.S. VoIP subscription rates grew 117%, from 4.2 million subscribers at the end of 2005 to 9.0 million by the end of 2006. By mid-year 2007, 11.8 million VoIP lines were in service. Annual VoIP services revenue topped $2.6 billion in 2006, and TeleGeography estimates revenue will exceed $4.9 billion in 2007.
Posted by Rich Miller October 31, 2007 | Permalink | Newsletter
October 08, 2007
Switch & Data Expands in Dallas Infomart
Switch and Data (SDXC) has expanded into additional space in the Infomart carrier hotel in Dallas, bringing its data center footprint in the Dallas metro market to more than 65,000 square feet. Switch and Data operates data centers in both the Infomart (1950 Stemmons Freeway) and 2323 Bryan Street (the Univision Center), a downtown carrier hotel owned by Digital Realty Trust (DLR).
"We are investing in expansion in markets like Dallas to support our customers’ increasing need for collocation space, interconnection, power and cooling to deliver rich Internet content," said Ernie Sampera, Sr. VP of Marketing for Switch and Data. SDXC's Dallas locations offer connectivity to 120 networks through the company's PAIX interconnection service.
Posted by Rich Miller October 08, 2007 | Permalink | Newsletter
July 30, 2007
Hurricane Electric Adds 10GigE Ports
Hurricane Electric has expanded its peering capabilities by adding 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GigE) ports at Switch and Data PAIX peering centers in New York and Palo, Alo, Calif., the two companies said today. The arrangement will provide additional connectivity for European and Asian networks seeking coast-to-coast peering.
"We have been a PAIX client now for more than seven years," said Mike Leber, president of Hurricane Electric. "Switch and Data continues to respond to client needs by providing next generation services such as 10GigE and IPv6 capability on their exchange. This in turn allows us to offer new technology at better rates for our clients."
In addition to providing Internet connection and colocation services to Hurricane Electric in Palo Alto and New York, Switch and Data (SDXC) also provides the company with colocation and connectivity services in its Seattle market.
Posted by Rich Miller July 30, 2007 | Permalink | Newsletter
July 20, 2007
InfoRelay Colos With Switch & Data
Colocation and Internet exchange specialist Switch and Data (SDXC) said InfoRelay Online Systems has become a customer at its Reston, Va., facility. InfoRelay will use its colocation space at the Reston facility to provide managed and unmanaged colocation and dedicated services to its customers.
"InfoRelay chose Switch and Data’s Reston facility to expand our northern Virginia presence and more specifically to provide additional co-location options to our customers," said Russell Weiss, Vice President of Technical Services for InfoRelay. "Switch and Data’s network neutrality, flexibility in enabling a mix of cage and cabinet environments and its ability deliver the required capacity to support InfoRelay’s projected growth and that of our clients were critical to our decision."
Switch and Data operates a network of neutral colocation facilities, with 34 data centers in 23 markets serving more than 800 customers. The company's PAIX business provides peering and Internet exchange services. Switch & Data went public Feb. 8 with an IPO that raised about $200 million.
Posted by Rich Miller July 20, 2007 | Permalink | Newsletter
April 23, 2007
Photobucket Doubles Its Colo Space
Photobucket, the Internet's largest image hosting service, said today that it is doubling its data center space in a Denver area facility operated by Switch and Data. Photobucket leases colocation space in the data center in Englewood, Colo., and uses Switch and Data’s power, cooling and interconnection services.
"As users continue to add more digital media on Photobucket, the additional hardware requirements increase our need for space, power, cooling, and bandwidth," said Darren Crystal, CTO and co-founder, Photobucket. "Switch and Data has been our data center partner since 2005 and their service, security and reliability made it an easy decision to expand our presence at their Denver colocation site."
The expansion is the most recent illustration of the impact of social networks on demand for data center services. Photobucket provides storage for close to 40 million users who use the service to link personal photos, graphics, slideshows and videos to their profiles on social netwokring sites including MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, Blogger and Xanga. Each day more than 7 million personal photos, graphics and videos are uploaded to Photobucket.
Posted by Rich Miller April 23, 2007 | Permalink | Newsletter
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