Misleading companies – part 2

In part 1, I wrote about my experiences looking for IP transit services in Telehouse West and an annoying encounter with ConnetU over a phantom PoP.

Part 2 of this rant covers a second requirement from the same project – this time for a pair of 1Gbps layer 1 (wavelength) or layer 2 (MPLS pseudo-wire or VPLS) circuits between two data centres – London Data eXchange’s LDeX1 in North-West London and Telehosue West in the London docklands.

This shouldn’t be such a hard task as both data centres are carrier neutral (with the Telehouse docklands campus being one of the most highly connected places in the UK, if not the EU!) and so have pretty good carrier coverage.

With LDeX1 being the smaller, newer site I decided to start with their carrier list (http://www.londondataexchange.net/connectivity/carrier-list/) as there was a good chance that any carriers on this list would also be present at the Telehouse docklands campus.

I contacted several of the carriers on this list, however this rant is specifically about euNetworks and IX Reach as both of these companies replied that they aren’t actually present in LDeX1.

IX Reach

IX Reach specifically list LDeX1 on their own PoP list (http://www.ixreach.com/wp-content/uploads/PoP-List1.pdf) as well has having put out a press release in August 2012 (http://www.ixreach.com/news-events/press-releases/ix-reach_partners_with_ldex/) saying:

IX Reach, a layer 2 Ethernet carrier, is pleased to have become a partner of LDeX and added LDeX1 – a state of the art, network independent 22,000sq ft London data centre – to its PoP (Point of Presence) list and is able to offer their full range of services; capacity from 100Mbps to multiple 10Gbps over Point-to-Point/Multipoint connection, full colocation options and also a Direct Connect into the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud platform.

Now, I don’t know about you, but to me, that says that the PoP is open and services are available to order, so I was somewhat surprised when I got a reply back from IX Reach saying:

We are at Telehouse West but would need at least a 10Gbps/10GE requirement to consider to PoP London LDeX1 which is also quite a distance away.

I sent them a link to the LDeX carrier list, as well as IX Reach’s own PoP list and press release, but all they came back with was:

I’m afraid our PoP list and the LDeX1 carrier list has not been updated, we are currently not in LDeX1.

Eh? Why would the IX Reach PoP list and the LDeX carrier list had to be “updated”? I pressed the point and asked for clarification. Had the LDeX1 PoP been closed for some reason?

As far as I’m aware, IX Reach were intending to PoP LDeX1, for some technical reason this did not happen.

All very vague and noncommittal. Suffice to say, IX Reach now join ConnetU on my list of companies who can’t be trusted to tell the truth!

euNetworks

euNetworks particularly annoyed me, as they stung me along a took quiet a bit of time before eventually deciding that they weren’t going to be able to provide any services.

euNetworks had previously announced back in March 2013 that they were establishing a Point of Presence in LDeX1 (see http://www.eunetworks.com/pdf/5397/euNetworks_LDeX_FINAL.pdf) and I had spoken to them at the time about the specific fibre route that they were using as I was interested in enhancements to redundancy and diversity that this might enable.

At the time, euNetworks had told me that they weren’t using the existing Geo (now Zayo) or Virgin Media fibre connections, but were instead digging their own fibre in, so I got in touch with them again on the 22nd of May 2014 to ask if this was live yet (as it had now been over a year since it was originally announced) and they eventually got back to me on the 27th of May 2014 to say:

Unfortunately euNetworks aren’t digging in to LDex, the dig is a large one which is financially big and the customer have taken a decision to not pop the building.

We will be able to provide a quote like from our 3rd party team.

This was somewhat disappointing, but at least it looked like they would be able to help in some way, I mean, they must have some kind of presence in LDeX1, otherwise they wouldn’t have announced that they were providing Amazon Web Services (AWS) Direct Connect services in LDeX1 only a couple of months ago (http://www.ldexgroup.co.uk/ldex-group-expands-colocation-offering-aws-cloud-services/) in April 2014 surely?

I followed this up on the 29th of May 2014, only to be told that they were still waiting for their partners. I then chased it again on the 5th of June 2014, only to be told that they weren’t going to be able to provide any kind of quote at all:

Unfortunately, we are not going able to provide this service. We are finding it hard to pin down a supplier for managed services from LDeX and consequently the pricing we are receiving is just not competitive.

Sigh! Two weeks of waiting, only to be told that they’re not going to be able to help at all. So much for an LDeX1 PoP!

So, there we go, two companies who can’t seem to decide whether they have opened a PoP or not, but apparently that doesn’t stop them putting out press releases about it and getting themselves featured on carrier lists…

Now, on to the third and final part of my rant – C4L!