Cross connects, which are one of the primary revenue centers for many traditional data center companies, are entirely free when you come online as a customer with us.
Many wonder why we do things like this, and while this may look like a simple concession, the real reasons as to why we do this and many others don’t are much deeper.
It’s no secret that the growth of hyperscale and AI has flipped negotiating leverage back to data center operators for the first time in nearly 15 years. That’s not all bad, as the investment pouring into the space will create valuable infrastructure to support these applications, as well as fiber and network going to areas it did not exist before.
The challenge however, is that hosting providers, network, and everyone else is getting pinched with regards to access to space, power and pricing. Growing scarcity is then allowing for holders of existing network fiber to middle without any recourse, and we see them testing the market in real time.
Why We Do Free Cross Connects
There are many benefits to free cross connects. The truth is, everyone benefits. More interconnectivity means better reliability. And that means that more interconnectivity and free cross connects in Dallas equals enhanced access to networks in tertiary markets.
Why are we doing it? We think it’s the right thing to do, and as the great Horst Schulze said, profit is the applause you receive for providing really good service.
Take a look at some of the key reasons why we choose to provide free cross connects for all of our customers below.
Experience As A Core Mission For Our Customers and Employees
Cross connects are extremely problematic for the data center experience. They set the relationship up to be combative from day one. A single cabinet in our facility on average has 2-3 cross connects. While these are sometimes purchased as part of the initial purchasing workflow, adding a cross connect mid contract creates challenges associated with non co-terminous contracts, but also creates an additional contracting workflow.
Our goal is to minimize the time that our staff is spending in contract negotiations with customers so that we can spend more time serving them. Changing a carrier, or adding a carrier should be as easy as submitting a ticket.
The mental energy associated with managing small ticket recurring contracts is not healthy for our employees or our customers. Companies like Megaport and others are also coming after cross connects to disrupt the core experience of data centers by providing an easy, fast, and reliable way to interconnect. When you compare SDN (Software Defined Networks) and solution providers like Megaport to the legacy mind-sets associated with many data center and internet providers, you see that revenue space being ripe for disruption.
Ordering a cross connect at TRG is as simple as kicking a ticket in. No contracts needed.
Creating and Demonstrating Value
TRG will be a great data center company long term because we remain committed to building excellence around our core offerings: The Best Data Center Experiences in the World.
Legacy models like building businesses based on cross connects is not only a customer-second mentality, but it introduces a long term risk for that business to fail on its core mission to its own people as it is forced to change away from a subscription cross connect model once market forces push that revenue stream away.
For a customer to add a cross connect, which is a non-active distribution path that does not require any real meaningful capacity from us (IE It’s a wire!). Our way of demonstrating value is to make an easy, fast, and reliable experience for our customers. Introducing an additional workflow does not provide experience. We instead focus on tying our costs to you to specific value added activities, like our Colo+ service where we take care of all physical aspects of your data center to include migration.
Incentives
At the core of it all, charging you for cross connects disincentivizes you from ordering additional connectivity. We are carrier and fiber rich, and we want to share as much of that with you as possible. This benefits everyone in two ways. It fosters a more rich fiber ecosystem at TRG and it makes it easier for customers to become more reliable in their operation by adding additional network connections.
We are continually finding new uses for cross connects, such as connecting to any of our many cloud providers and MSP’s in the facility for free to create a hybrid cloud / edge strategy, or interconnecting cabinets and getting people away from a cage model.
