MeridianTelesis expands nationally as others contract

MeridianTelesis, a carrier-neutral co-location provider for Internet-oriented telecommunications and data storage markets, is using old-fashioned money sense to expand its nationwide presence. The Philadelphia-based firm quadrupled that presence through an arrangement that gives it operational management of Broadwing’s co-location facilities in New York City, Dallas and Santa Clara, Calif.

Under terms of the agreement, Broadwing will continue to maintain and manage its points of presence and associated DC power plants at each of the facilities while MeridianTelesis offers co-location and bandwidth services to customers that reside on those facilities over Broadwing’s national all-optical switched network.

“We’re one of the few companies positioned to grow a national footprint,” said David Taffet, MeridianTelesis’ founder and president, comparing the company to “a salmon going upstream while the rest of the world is either collapsing or has already failed.”

The secret, he said, is maintaining a traditional economic focus.

“I never bought into the new economy, never bought into debt, never bought into dot-com, never thought that market presence somehow translated into profit. I always believed that you have to lead with solid businesses and ripple your growth, as opposed to mass growth everywhere,” Taffet said.

The Broadwing arrangement allows MeridianTelesis to make a much bigger ripple, but not a cannonball-like splash, said Taffet, who said he believed that national markets are concentrated in five major areas – New York, San Francisco, Dallas, Atlanta and Northern Virginia – and four tertiary ones – Boston, Chicago, Denver and Los Angeles.

“If you want to define national by the network facilities, then we are not national,” he said. “We believe we’re filling in the appropriate amount of supply to meet the demands in those target markets.”

Meanwhile, he said, despite the economic slump, there is still a need for a neutral co-location facility.

“In the face of 9/11 and in the face of infrastructure problems across the board and not having capital budgets, you still have the pressure to outsource. That’s where Meridian Telesis has positioned itself,” he said.

Broadwing is now free to focus on its bandwidth services.

“We’re managing their point of presence in their network, much as we do for other carriers, but then we assume that co-location business, which is a business unto itself,” said Taffet. “We think there will be more opportunities like that in this market.”