Data center services provider CyrusOne – which until it was bought by Cincinnati Bell prided itself on having a pure colocation play – is entering the network-interconnection business, further strengthening its position in the market against rivals like Equinix and Telx. Interconnect is a major play for both.

CyrusOne president Gary Wojtaszek said the company’s customers were looking for a variety of ways to transmit data globally. The company is now building an “ecosystem” that will enable customers to share data amongst themselves at its data centers.

“By expanding the availability of dense network connections at our facilities, we are preparing for the future needs of our customers as the internet continues to grow in terms of users, content, and our customers’ reliance upon it,” Wojtaszek said.

CyrusOne is building Internet Exchanges at all of its locations. These are network rooms where companies can interconnect networks to exchange traffic.

This will give its tenants access to a larger number of network carriers and will also enable internet peering.

Customers will be able to connect with business partners, content providers, networks, carriers, internet service providers and Ethernet buyers and sellers on a local, regional or global scale.

Ever since the telecommunications company Cincinnati Bell bought it for about US$525m in 2010 from ABRY Partners, CyrusOne has been expanding its footprint nationally and globally.  

The company’s first foray outside of the US came in May 2011, when the company announced it would be opening a data center in London. Its latest move was expansion into the Asia-Pacific market with announcement of a data center in Singapore.

Addition of new services is a change in direction for the provider, which about two years ago stuck to one kind of service.

In December 2009, CyrusOne’s then general manager John Greenwood told DatacenterDynamics that the company’s strategy at the time was to focus on providing a pure colocation service (space and power) and focus on doing it well.