A carrier hotel is a building where a large number of networks, including carriers, internet providers, cloud on-ramps and content companies, bring in their fiber so they can connect to each other. The connections happen in a meet-me room, where a short cable called a cross-connect links one network's equipment to another's inside the building. Most offices never need to be in one. ISPs, hosting and SaaS companies, and businesses that run their own routing or buy wholesale bandwidth often do.
The name is informal, but the idea is simple. Instead of every network building a separate fiber route to every other network, they all come to the same building and connect across a room. In New York, 60 Hudson Street, 111 8th Avenue and 32 Avenue of the Americas are among the best-known examples, and they are where FiberX delivers IP transit.
Why carrier hotels exist
Connecting two networks across a city means building or leasing a fiber route between them, which is slow and expensive. Connecting two networks in the same building means running a cable across a room, which is quick and cheap by comparison. Once a few networks cluster in one building, it becomes the obvious place for the next one to join, because that single presence reaches everyone already there. That clustering effect is why a small number of buildings in each major city carry so much of the traffic.
The effect is strongest where the building also hosts an internet exchange: a shared switching platform where many networks exchange traffic with each other directly, rather than paying a transit provider to carry it.
What is inside
| Part of the building | What it does |
|---|---|
| Fiber entrances | Conduits where carriers bring their fiber in from the street, ideally at more than one point |
| Meet-me room (MMR) | A secure room with patch panels where networks terminate fiber and connect to each other |
| Colocation space | Floors or suites with racks, cabinets and cages where tenants install their equipment |
| Risers and pathways | Vertical and horizontal routes carrying fiber from the MMR to each tenant's space |
| Power and cooling | Utility feeds, UPS systems, generators and cooling sized for dense equipment |
| Security and access control | Staffed entry, badge and escort rules, logged access to shared rooms |
The meet-me room
The meet-me room is the heart of the building. Each network that wants to connect there takes space on patch panels in the room, with its fiber running back to its own equipment elsewhere in the building. When two parties agree to connect, the building operator runs a cross-connect between their panel positions. Traffic then passes directly from one network to the other without leaving the building.
Larger buildings may have more than one meet-me room, sometimes run by different operators. That is useful for resilience, because two connections through two different rooms avoid a single point of failure, but it also means you need to know which room each party you want to reach is in.
Cross-connects, briefly
A cross-connect is the physical cable that links two parties in the building, usually a single-mode fiber pair. You typically order it from the building or colocation operator, with a letter of authorisation from the party you are connecting to, and pay a one-time installation fee plus a monthly charge for as long as it stays in place. The details, including what can go wrong on the day it is turned up, are in what is a cross-connect.
Carrier hotel, data center and internet exchange
These terms overlap, which confuses people.
- Carrier hotel describes a building defined by how many networks are present and interconnecting there. Many are older buildings in dense downtown areas.
- Data center describes a facility built to house computing equipment. Many modern data centers are also rich in networks, and some carrier hotels contain large colocation floors, so one building can be both.
- Internet exchange is not a building. It is a shared switching platform, usually located in one or more carrier hotels or data centers, where networks exchange traffic.
- Carrier-neutral means the facility is not owned by one carrier and allows any network to come in. Neutrality is valuable, because it keeps the choice of carriers wide.
Who needs a presence in one
- ISPs and hosting providers that buy transit from several carriers, peer with other networks and serve customers across a region.
- SaaS and content companies that need their platform close to many networks and to cloud on-ramps. See cloud connectivity.
- Enterprises running their own routing, with their own IP addresses and BGP sessions to more than one carrier. Our guide to static IPs and BGP covers when that is worth it.
- Trading and latency-sensitive firms that want the shortest paths to exchanges, venues and data providers.
- Businesses buying wavelengths or dark fiber that want one end of the route to land where many networks can be reached. See wavelength services and dark fiber.
Who does not
A typical office, clinic, restaurant or shop has no reason to be in a carrier hotel. Its carrier's network runs through such buildings on its behalf. What it needs is a good circuit into its own building, and possibly a backup.
What a presence costs you, in line items
We do not publish prices here, because they vary a great deal between buildings and operators, but the structure of the bill is predictable:
- Space: a rack, cabinet, cage or suite, usually billed monthly.
- Power: billed per circuit or by capacity, often with a redundant pair of feeds per rack. In dense deployments, power is frequently the largest line.
- Cross-connects: a one-time install plus a monthly charge for each one.
- Remote hands: the operator's staff doing physical tasks for you, such as rebooting equipment, swapping a cable or checking a light, billed per task or by time.
- Installation and access: set-up charges, and any fees for escorted or after-hours access.
You usually get into a carrier hotel through a colocation provider that operates space in the building, rather than by leasing directly from the building owner.
Resilience is not automatic
A building full of networks is not immune to failure. Power, cooling and the meet-me room itself are shared by everyone inside, so ask how the building is powered and cooled, how often its generators are tested, and whether the meet-me room has redundant power. For critical platforms, many organisations place equipment in two separate facilities and connect them, so a problem in one building does not take everything down. The rule that applies to an office's circuits applies here too: two paths only help if they fail for different reasons.
A worked example
Hypothetical company and design, invented to show how the pieces fit together. It does not describe a real client.
A regional internet provider serves business customers from its own facility across the river. It decides to place one cabinet in a Manhattan carrier hotel to buy transit from two carriers, connect to an internet exchange and reach more networks directly.
| Connection | How it is made | Cross-connects |
|---|---|---|
| Transit from carrier A | Cross-connect from the cabinet to carrier A's panel in the MMR | 1 |
| Transit from carrier B | Cross-connect to carrier B, ideally via a different MMR or pathway | 1 |
| Internet exchange port | Cross-connect to the exchange's panel | 1 |
| Wavelength back to its own facility | Cross-connect to the wavelength carrier's panel | 1 |
| Second wavelength on a diverse route | Cross-connect to a second carrier, or a second route from the same one | 1 |
The cabinet itself is modest. The value is that five connections, each of which would have meant a separate build to a separate location, are now cables across a room. The provider's bill has five cross-connect lines on top of space and power, and each one has to be disconnected formally if it is ever no longer needed.
Checklist: choosing a building and a provider
- Which networks you need are already present, and in which meet-me room?
- Is the facility carrier-neutral, with no restrictions on which networks can serve you?
- Are there diverse fiber entrances and more than one pathway to the MMR?
- What is the power density available per rack, and is it redundant?
- What do cross-connects cost to install and per month, and what is the usual lead time?
- How are remote hands billed, and what are the access rules and hours?
Questions to ask your provider
- Which carriers and exchanges can I reach by cross-connect from this space?
- Are cross-connects ordered through you or directly from the building operator?
- Can I get two cross-connects to the same carrier through different rooms or pathways?
- What does a cross-connect cost, one-time and monthly, and does the price rise at renewal?
- What happens to my cross-connects if I move to a different cage or floor in the building?
Get the interconnection side priced with the rest
If you need transit, wavelengths or colocation in a carrier hotel, the circuits and the building costs should be compared together, because the cheapest transit is not cheap if the cross-connects to reach it are not. Tier 1 carriers bid, we bring back the best offer and show you the full set of line items, and the carrier pays us rather than you. The quote is free with no obligation. Tell us what you need to connect, call 478-758-8091 or text (347) 870-0965.
