IO Blog
Henry Ford, back in the days of the Model T, wasn’t exactly what one might consider a strong proponent of customer choice. In fact, Ford was a man who believed in limited customer options. “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black,” he famously wrote in his autobiography.
While carmakers, including Ford, now understand that offering multiple color, styling and other options is a smart business tactic–one that benefits both the customer and the seller–it’s a lesson that many colocation service providers have yet learn. In fact, a large number of colocation companies seem to be channeling the spirit of old Henry by tacitly proclaiming: “Any customer can have any carrier that he wants so long as it’s the one we select.”
The concept of giving colocation customers the ability to connect with the carrier they prefer, rather than being told which carrier they must use, is known as “carrier neutrality.” This idea is a key feature to look for when evaluating colocation providers, since it opens to door to both cost savings and ongoing operational flexibility.
Simply put, carrier neutrality gives each colocation customer direct access to local, national, international, wireline and wireless, private, public, research and dark fiber networks from a variety of tier 1 telecommunications carriers.
Incidentally, don’t confuse carrier neutrality with an unrelated concept known as “network neutrality, “the belief that Internet access providers (ISPs) shouldn’t be allowed to give preferential or inferior treatment to specific services. While network neutrality, is an important and hotly debated concept, it’s not directly connected to carrier neutrality.
The Benefits
Beyond the fundamental advantages of customer choice, carrier neutrality also provides these benefits:
Enhanced competition. The carrier neutral model is better for the customer, since it drives prices down by encouraging competition.
Honest pricing. With carrier neutrality, there’s no possibility of a conflict of interest created by the alliance of a facility provider and its favored carrier. Carrier-specific colocation providers are notorious for slapping customers with Internet service fees that far exceed open market costs.
Sweeter deals. If a carrier runs a promotion, or decides to offer a rock bottom price on a particular service, a carrier-neutral customer can often get in on the deal, and save some money, with little or no effort.
Procurement convenience. For customers that plan to use multiple carriers, carrier neutrality can save time and frustration by speeding and simplifying the procurement process, providing access to multiple carriers with just a single contract.
Better service. Businesses that colocate at a carrier neutral facility have increased leverage over their carrier. If the carrier starts behaving poorly in terms of service quality, reliability or pricing, the customer has the ability to switch to another carrier without having to uproot all of its equipment and move to another location.
Blended bandwidth. A feature that takes bandwidth from multiple carriers to provide multi-homed network access, blended bandwidth gives customers a highly reliable connection to the Internet and keeps mission-critical business applications “always-on.”
Final Point
Along with carrier neutrality, be sure to look for a coloaction provider that offers free cross-connects. The provider should impose no recurring charges or hidden fees, regardless if the customers is using single or multi-mode fiber, category 3, 5 or 6 twisted pair cable or 734/735 COAX with BNC connectors.
