Colt launches PoP in Interxion's new Marseille facility
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Colt launches PoP in Interxion's new Marseille facility

Colt Technology Services has announced its second point of presence in Interxion’s Marseille campus.

The UK-based wholesaler will launch a new Pop in Interxion’s new MRS2 data centre, adding to its existing presence in the data centre firm’s MRS1 facility that lies around 4km away from the new build.

Interxion’s Marseille campus is becoming a well-established connectivity hub with a growing carrier community counting more than 130 connectivity providers. In response to this, it is launching two new facilities in the city to complement MRS1’s 6,5000sqm space – 4,500sqm MRS2 which is due to go fully operational this year, and MRS3, which it has now received planning permission to build on the same site.

Colt VP of wholesale Andrew Edison told Capacity that a core reason behind the new PoP in Marseille is to support growing demand from European customers whilst also building a strong and diverse set of options ready to meet growing demand for bandwidth and services in the Middle East and Africa.

Edison said: “We saw it as a strategically important location and it has become just that. Irt has become this critical gateway in supporting service providers and subsea cable operators that are coming into Europe via this gateway. They are coming in because there is demand to access traffic, content, applications, media that is housing these data centres in Europe. 

“We provide a really advanced high speed optical network to those data centres. So it ideally lines up with our strategy to be the leading connectivity and high bandwidth provider across Europe. It is a strong fit for us and we only expect traffic and demand to grow coming out of these markets.”

Growth of MEA

Internet traffic in the Middle East and Africa is set to grow six-fold by 2020 to 10.9 Exabytes per month. Traffic in Asia Pacific is forecast to grow three-fold to 67.8 Exabytes per month over the same period, according to the Cisco Visual Networking Index.

Expanding its footprint in Marseille – the landing point for 13 major subsea cable systems – will enhance Colt’s ability to address demand for high bandwidth services across the regions through its IQ Network. Interxion first bought the MRS1 facility in 2014 from SFR Netcenter.

Colt’s IQ Network is a high bandwidth optical network that connects into 800 data centres across its footprint, while it also operates a fibre network that links to 25,000 buildings worldwide.

Edison told Capacity that Marseille fits across its plans to support carriers, service providers and enterprises in three ways: “It is important from a connectivity standpoint. We’d already invested into MRS-1 in 2016, and we’ve seen that Marseille is an important hub to provide connectivity into and out of the European region. There are around 130 connectivity partners who come into MRS-1 and that makes it a very important strategic opportunity for us.

“We want to support the demand on that traffic coming in. We’ve seen an explosive growth in internet demand and internet traffic. From the Middle East and Africa we expect traffic to grow sixfold by 2020 and from Asia Pac it will grow threefold. That internet traffic is primarily trying to get to the data, content and applications which are housed in Europe. Out of Marseille we bring our high bandwidth optical network and then we can pull that traffic to all the key peering points and data centres across Europe.”

For Interxion, the new PoP in its facility sees an extension of the data centre firm’s relationship with Colt – a relationship that sees Colt providing connectivity to over 40 Interxion data centres across Europe including its facilities in Paris, London and Frankfurt. It is part of a wider expansion of Interxion's European footprint.

Colt is Interxion’s “most popular” interconnection partner with other networks, cloud providers and digital media and finance customers, providing more interconnections than any other, according to, Interxion director of marketing & business development, connectivity segment, Mike Hollands.

He said: “Colt is extending its network into MRS-2 and that adds to that resilience and diversity story for MRS-2. Colt and Interxion operate in many of the same countries in Europe and that Synergy in not just geographic scope but also in customer base is reflected by the fact that Colt is the network that has the most cross-connects across our footprint. They are present in 42 of our data centres but Colt is also interconnecting with many of the networks, cloud providers, digital media and finance customers we focus on. This has led to Colt being arguably the most popular network with customers we serve in our data centre.

“For us to deliver a data centre and diverse location is only part of our story. Colt is providing another part – a modern network with diverse routes out of Marseille and providing services that are very popular with the clients that we serve.”

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