IntelePeer and Telx, a Match Made in the Cloud

Last month, when I attended the grand opening of Telx’ latest colocation facility in Clifton, New Jersey, I noticed something on one of the slides during the opening presentations that got me thinking. Specifically, I saw that IntelePeer (News - Alert) was listed as part of the Telx partner ecosystem, and I thought that makes all the sense in the world. Now, the two companies have officially announced a partnership that will bring new and highly efficient communications solutions to the Telx customer base.

 

Telx is focused on providing its customers colocation and interconnection facilities, allowing them to grow relationships with other colocation customers to leverage the latest communications capabilities at a fraction of the cost they would incur if they had to create each of these interconnections individually. In fact, CEO Eric Shepcaro (News - Alert) says the interconnect business is the single greatest driver of Telx’ growth — and not surprisingly, considering the growth of the cloud computing space recently, which allows businesses to deliver new services without service interruption or expensive hardware upgrades.

 

IntelePeer, for its part, is a staunch proponent of such technologies, having founded its Communications as a Service (CaaS) business on the belief that the future of communications lies in the ability to provide communications services at the application layer, independent of various access means and communications hardware. In other words, neutralizing the traditional challenges presented by communications hardware.

 

According to John Hart, IntelePeer’s SVP, business development and marketing, the idea is to enable communications across vendors, rather than limiting its use to single platforms. The challenge is to efficiently achieve that goal in a multi-vendor and multi-network environment, which he says can be done through the Web.

 

Clearly, there is a natural fit here, with Telx providing the cloud environment and connections between providers, content providers, and businesses, and IntelePeer enabling communications through the various applications and services used by the colocation customers.

 

“IntelePeer offers our customers such turnkey communications solutions that help integrate phone, conferencing and electronic communication within familiar interfaces and in a cost-effective way,” explained Rose Klimovich, Telx vice president of product development and management.

 

Specifically, IntelePeer’s ReachSuite hosted voice and rich media applications will not only provide an ability to roll out new communications services, but customers will also be able to leverage IntelePeer’s carrier-grade peering fabric to create even greater cost efficiencies.

 

In November, IntelePeer secured $18 million in additional funding, which it said would be used to further enhance its global peering network, which includes more than 50 service providers worldwide, while also further developing its AppworX platform, which drives its CaaS initiative.

 

This partnership is a clear opportunity for IntelePeer to further extend its presence, given the growth Telx has seen of late — Shepcaro says it added more than 1,000 cross connects in Q4 2008. In fact, now with 15 sites, including four in the New York Metro area, which are connected via a new DWDM ring, there is hardly a greater single growth opportunity for IntelePeer, especially given the synergies between the two companies’ business models.

 

“IntelePeer ReachSuite applications offer the value Telx customers need to stand apart from competitors in a crowded market, while delivering the carrier-grade performance they require,” said Hart.  “With our ReachSuite, they can quickly roll out new high-margin services that drive new productivity while reducing operational and telecommunications costs for their customers.”

 

The partnership is a win-win for both. Telx adds yet another global service provider to its growing list of partners and customers — as well as delivering the next generation communications capabilities enabled by IntelePeer — while IntelePeer is able to extend the reach of its CaaS model and peering network.