Date: Tuesday, September 24, 2002
By: Corwin A. Thomas
Of: The Plain Dealer
T-Rex Capital has teamed up with Michigan developer Peter Berns to create a “Meet-Me Room” at the T-Rex Technology Center on Rockwell Avenue, between East 18th and East 19th Streets in Cleveland.
The “Meet-Me Room,” the telecommunications equivalent of a railroad-switching yard, allows telecommunications carriers and others to easily connect their networks.
Berns, who in 1996 created Colo.com, which is defunct, will operate the facility. The T-Rex Technology Center is a four-building, 500,000-square-foot facility that houses telecommunications carriers, including ASN, Qwest Communications, Allegiance Telecom and XO Communications. Berns now runs Fiber Optic Network Exchange.
The T-Rex Technology Center is what is commonly known as a carrier hotel. It provides space in which telecommunications companies can install network equipment, facilitate network connections and take advantage of lower-cost back-up power and security. Users include Internet service providers, local exchange companies, cable companies, e-commerce companies and fiber-optic network providers.
Thomas Mulroy, T-Rex chief executive, said the Meet-Me Room will let telecommunications carriers in Cleveland interconnect without a significant capital investment.
“We are already negotiating with several companies interested in using our Meet-Me Rooms – current tenants of our Cleveland property as well as others,” Mulroy said.
Berns said the Meet-Me Room provides the ability to hand off traffic at a lower cost, creating a benefit to large users such as universities, corporations, hospitals or any high-bandwidth user.
“This is very en vogue now,” Berns said. “Carriers are starting to catch on to the cost benefit. The concept has been around, but the marketplace has changed. We can still generate revenue without the cost of more buildings and more people,”
Berns said a company would be charged about $2 a day to connect in the Meet-Me Room, or about $350 a month including space rental.