by Fredy Kuenzler
The entrance of the building is rather nice: a lot of artwork, the landlord seems to have a sense for nice decorations. Telehouse itself is a tenant on the 7th floor; I was told that the datacenter was formerly operated by Lehman Brothers but upgraded by Telehouse.
Upon arrival, the shipped gear was delivered to our cabinet within ten minutes without even asking for. The cabinet and cross-connects were delivered and ready as ordered. The router itself (Brocade XMR-16000) is really heavy but a Telehouse technician helped to lift it into the cabinet.
Soon I figured that our power cables did not fit, we got standard US power cables, but the cabinet was equipped with APC power strips. Telehouse staff quickly tried to resolve the issue: they provided other APC power strips, which, unfortunately did not fit with the ordered power supply plugs above the cabinet (2* 208V, 20amps); but after all they could borrow the right power cables for our equipment and within a few hours everything was up and running. We will order and ship new cables to the site in order to return them.
Our new NYIIX connection turned up immediately – and on top, we got a temporary VLAN via NYIIX to interconnect with our NYC-1 pop in TELX 111 8th avenue too bring our gear online, as the ordered dark-fiber from 3rd party vendor was expected to be delivered late.
The new dark-fiber itself had an issue: one fiber strand had too much loss. Telehouse staff was really helpful to get everything measured and checked. I also could borrow a short SC-SC fiber cable within minutes to plug a loop for debugging. At the time of writing it’s not yet resolved as the issue is most likely with the 3rd party supplier but I’m positive this will be fixed soon.
All in all I have a very good impression of the service the Telehouse team provided to us, it’s smooth and easy going, really helpful and friendly, and the team seems to have a relaxed and welcoming atmosphere. For customers from abroad I think this is a value-add which has no price tag. Engineers from Europe are usually not too familiar with the habits of North America. From my experience I can recommend to collocate at Telehouse Chelsea (85 10 Avenue NYC), there are plenty of cabinets available, too. And there are helpful technicians in short distance available, if needed (unlike other sites in NYC). Also to mention that Telehouse offers WiFi to customers in the whole site, ask at reception for UserID and Password.
Init7 NYC-2 pop at Telehouse Chelsea is now operational. We are ready to take orders for IP transit and MPLS VLL services – please send inquiry to sales at init7 dot net. And yes: we can deploy fast (as Telehouse can do cross-connects quickly).