This is a central Manchester facility which mainly serves as a large meeting point for telecoms companies and carriers. Whilst it is an older facility compared to some, the majority of internet traffic north of Birmingham is routed via this building and exchanged between carriers. This means that the majority of carriers and telecoms companies have physical equipment located in this building for the purpose of directly connecting to their suppliers. Entanet have a PoP (Point of Presence) here.
We have separate primary and secondary links to Entanet configured in an active/backup set up. These connections are physical pieces of cable which means we rely on no third party IP transit. The purpose of these links is to get traffic directly from the end-users DSL/EFM/ Leased line connection such that we are not reliant on any third party routing companies along the way. Traffic flows from the customers site, onto BT's central internet backbone to Entanet and then directly to us.
Additionally we have 2 further private links (1 x GE, 1 x Fibre) from Kilburn House directly to our core network in Reynolds House. Reynolds House is on the other side of Manchester. These links are also configured in an active/backup set up such that if one link fails the other will automatically start routing traffic.
This is where the core network has resided since 2007. We moved here from the Docklands in East London following several power outages. Also, with the technical team based in Manchester it makes geographic sense for the network to be based here in case we need to access the equipment for servicing and/or replacement.
An overview of the facilities that are made available to us in Reynolds House can be found below:
From a connectivity perspective we have access to resilient fibre entering the building at multiple points onto the Manchester fibre network, coupled with on-site multi-homed transit available along with LAN extension circuits to other Manchester-based data centres (e.g. our link to Kilburn House).