I've blogged about the 400 megawatt of power in Columbia, Missouri, and an obvious next question is what is the fiber like. Last year's information was "there isn't enough fiber."

Research the site and the common knowledge is three providers - AT&T, Level3, and CenturyLink/Lightcore. That's not enough. But look at where the data comes from, the salesperson who is ready to take the order.

Mike Manos wrote an entertaining post on kicking the dirt.

Mike Manos discusses data center site selection, you need to “kick the dirt” to find what is real

At Gartner’s Data Center Conference, Mike Manos made an excellent point that “75% of the data center costs are effected by site selection.” Great architecture is designed to a site characteristics. But, the status quo is to design data centers that are built based on past experiences. Green data centers need to be designed to fit with site characteristics.

Mike wrote a post on site selection.

Kickin’ Dirt

December 21, 2009 by mmanos

Mike Manos was out at the Columbia, MO data center site to kick the dirt, and he recalls there not being enough fiber being in Columbia from his past data center research. The team luckily had Mike for a day without his cell phone as he forgot it at home, so they had his undivided attention.

Chicago and Kansas City are midwest centers for cattle which was connected by railway.

And Interstate 70 connects Kansas City and St. Louis.

There must be more fiber available. With a little "kickin the dirt" and willingness to spend a bit of more and time, there are 4 more providers few discuss.

Global Crossing

Sprint

XO Communications

MNA - Missouri Network Alliance

Kicking the dirt further, turns out Level 3 has two fiber paths in Columbia - the typical interstate 70, and a little known WillTel's pipeline fiber.

Also the North South path on Highway 63 is available for future growth.

In general, Columbia is a place to take take a piss and fast food break between Kansas City and St. Louis. There are three fiber trenches running this same path that can be tapped within 30 miles of Columbia. Note the 30 mile separation helps meet the fiber requirement for geographic diversity.

Now that the team has kicked the dirt, it is easy to tell the fiber access story in Columbia, MO. 400 megawatts of power and plenty of available fiber.