Web Hosting Reviews & Ratings

July 06, 2009

Colocation: Carrier Neutral or Carrier Specific?

When pondering the decision of moving your servers and network equipment to a hosting provider's data center, one should know that there are essentially two main types of colocation: carrier neutral and carrier specific.

What's the Difference?

Carrier neutral facilities tend to give you a greater variety to choose from.  With this model, your server hardware is stored in a data center that offers connections from an array of internet carriers.  Usually, the first step in choosing a carrier neutral colocation facility is selecting the carrier desired to  provide the internet connection.  Similar to a real estate brokerage firm, the colocation provider typically steps up to help you find the best service that fits your budget.  After deciding on a carrier, they let you know which data centers are available to you in what area.  At the point, you can choose the location that works best for your particular needs.

Depending the size and nature of your business, you may opt to have your equipment stored in various regions or in a single general area.  Price for a carrier neutral colocation service varies from provider to provider.  The major draw to this model is that it gives you the option to shop around for the best deal possible.  The biggest downside is the you generally have to pay considerably more to lease space in a carrier neutral colocation facility.

When opting for the carrier specific model, you don't have a say in which carrier will provide the internet connection.  The process is all very simple as you choose the facility you want to store your hardware at and in turn, you receive internet connectivity from whatever provider they utilize.  The major drawback to this colocation model is that you don't have a chance to shop around for the best bargain on your internet connection.  Many find that the carrier neutral variation is the way to go because it encourages competition among service providers and drives down the price.  This is something you may want to look into when considering that you can end up getting a good deal on service with the best internet connection for your hosting needs.

Service Availability

While Carrier neutral is a popular choice, this service is mainly prominent in only the United Kingdom and United States.  These services are very limited in Canada due to the monopolies run by the country's major internet service providers.  Those who can find this type of service need to be prepared to pay higher costs.  Since most colocation providers do not offer carrier neutral services, the handful that do are able to hike up their prices due to the fact that there is virtually no competition in the market.  This isn't so much of a problem for customers in the U.S. as carrier neutral services are far more abundant.  The good news for Canadian consumers is that more providers are leveraging direct fiber links from major U.S. providers, a factor that will likely result in more competition and most importantly, lower prices.

Tags: carrier specific,  carrier neutral,  servers,  network equipment,  internet connection,  data center,  colocation