MONTREAL – Allstream announced Tuesday it has established a new point-of-presence (POP) in Chicago that will provide access to more than 40 of the leading domestic and international carriers and physical connection points to the world’s telecommunications networks and internet backbones.
The POP location is part of Allstream’s continued investment in its 30,000-kilometre IP fibre-optic network and will complement its existing U.S. connection points in Seattle, New York City, Buffalo and another Chicago location.
Accelero Capital Holdings, the investment company owned by former Wind Mobile backer Naguib Sawiris, announced in May it was acquiring the Allstream business from Manitoba Telecom Services in a transaction that values Allstream at $520 million.
“This new site will also provide faster installation times for Allstream’s customers who need connection points in this corridor,” said Allstream’s vice-president of sales Edith Cloutier in a release from the company.
The new facility, located on Cermak Street in the South Loop of the Chicago Central Business District, is in addition to Allstream’s existing POP in Printer’s Square. Allstream says the Cermak location enables it to offer the same high grade, redundant switched ethernet and wavelength services out of two Chicago locations.
“Our point-of-presence in the Cermak facility has improved our customer experience by optimizing service delivery through a significant reduction in provisioning time in Chicago,” said Cloutier. “The ability to provision services at a quicker rate ensures that all of our customers can turn up their network earlier, saving them time and money.”
Allstream teamed up with Telx, an interconnection and data centre services provider, to get the location up and running as quickly as possible. The Cermak POP provides Allstream with connections in key locations near cable landing, fibre paths, exchanges and media hubs that will provide customers even greater network access and security, says Allsteam.
