February 14, 2006 London, UK -- Datahop announced its deployment of a 10-Gbit/sec fiber-optic ring network interconnecting 10 major commercial data centers in London. The service provider says its network is set to transform the availability, speed, and cost of connectivity for the city's ISPs and enterprises. The provider also announced that it is now offering direct Layer 2 connectivity to three Tier-1 carriers.
"Datahop's dedicated interconnects to Tier-1 carriers provide access to the most reliable and cost-effective global network connectivity available in London," says Datahop's founder Chris Orme. "It is the first commercial network in London to offer such ultra high-speed connectivity between all these data centers - with two 10-Gbit fiber links into each site. We also believe our tariff, with its low flat rate fees, establishes a new standard in the UK's data transport market."
"Datahop's new 10-Gbit data center ring network is a welcome addition to [London's] IT infrastructure," adds Daniel Masih, manager of business development at NTT Europe.
"It creates the potential for us to build many more direct sessions between our core routers and end users in ten of the leading commercial data centers."
For high bandwidth users, Datahop says its Layer 2 IP transit tariff to Tier-1 carriers is £14 per Mbit/sec of bandwidth. Additionally, companies in London can establish interlinks between any of the 10 data centers from £75 per month per location, with free installation and cabling.
According to a press release, the Datahop ring currently links 10 data centers, with two 10-Gbit feeds into each. The data centers are: Telehouse Europe's north, east, and metro sites, City Lifeline, Global Switch 1, Interxion, Telecity Harbour Exchange, and Redbus Interhouse's Sovereign House, Meridian Gate, and Harbour Exchange sites. Fast Ethernet ports, and a choice of fiber-optic or copper gigabit ports, are available at every site.
Datahop says its network runs an advanced protection system ensuring that service is unaffected by a fiber break at any point. The provider says all of the data center installations are designed for high reliability with separated fiber routes into and out of data centers, redundant power supplies, and the support of a 24/7 network monitoring operation.