"Technology services and telecommunications provider C Spire announced that it will construct a state-of-the-art data center in northeastern Mississippi, aimed at providing cloud colocation solutions to companies in the region. The 22,400-square-foot facility will be constructed on a 6.5-acre campus located at the Thad Cochran Research, Technology and Economic Development Park in Starkville, Miss. It will cost $20 million to construct, with completion slated for November 2014.
The data center will be a Tier 3-plus facility, one of only 52 facilities in the U.S. to achieve a Tier 3 or 4 certification rating from the Uptime Institute. Other services that C Spire plans to offer include colocation, managed hosting, disaster recovery contingency planning, enterprise cloud services and office space for client IT personnel. Tenants will also have access to C Spire’s ring-protected fiber network for premium connectivity solutions, which also link to C Spire’s two other Mississippi data centers in Jackson and Ridgeland.
“Now, more than ever before, businesses need to intelligently manage their data and critical operational processes to handle the explosive growth of mobile, Internet and corporate-based data demands through cloud-based solutions,” stated C Spire chief operating officer Kevin Hankins. “Business is not going to the cloud. Business has gone to the cloud.”
Colocation on the Mississippi
C Spire representatives said that the data center will provide hosting solutions sorely needed in the southeast region of the U.S., offering the highest performing facility with available space within 250 miles of its location. Other nearby data center hubs, including Atlanta, Nashville, Raleigh and Birmingham, have little commercial space available. The data center’s location in the northeastern part of the Magnolia state places it in a low-risk geographic area for clients in neighboring states concerned about locations too close to common hurricane paths. Starkville and Oktibbeha County officials also provided tax incentives in support of C Spire’s project, commenting that it represented the largest-ever private sector investment in the region.
“We’re excited about adding a world-class data center to the arsenal of tools that we use to recruit new business and encourage existing companies to expand in Mississippi,” stated Brent Christensen, executive director of the Mississippi Development Authority.
C Spire Wireless has also been in the news lately for fiber optic deployments meant to boost connectivity in the Mississippi region. The company deployed a fiber-to-the-home solution offering Internet speeds of 1 gigabit per second, reported the Jackson Clarion-Ledger. Initial targets include city and county governments and businesses as well as residences. The speeds are similar to the Google Fiber service deployed last year in Kansas City and recently in Provo, Utah. Fast connectivity and high-performance data center capacity could entice businesses to move to a state that has long struggled to stimulate economic growth."
