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Qwest Reopens Closed Site

Carrier Hotels Staff Posted Apr 15, 2004

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Qwest is reopening a data center in Columbus, Ohio that it shuttered 16 months ago, saying it needs more space due to improved hosting sales. The company will also expand an existing data center in Sunnyvale, Calif.

The Columbus facility is one of eight facilities targeted for closure in a December, 2002 as Qwest curbed its hosting operation. Qwest at one time planned to build as many as 42 CyberCenters, funded partly by a $5 billion strategic alliance with IBM.

The customers never materialized to support those ambitions. But Qwest says sales of hosting services have turned around in recent months.

"Since customer demand for hosting has grown more than 10 percent in the past year, we decided to expand our Sunnyvale and Columbus CyberCenters,” said Cliff Holtz, executive vice president for Qwest business markets group, who emphasized the company's "resolute commitment to Web hosting and our Web hosting services." Qwest recently expanded its offerings to include improved disaster recovery services.

It's a good thing Qwest held onto the Columbus center, retaining the leases on the eight sites closed in the 2002 cutbacks. At the time, Qwest migrated customers into eight CyberCenters in Chicago, Denver, Newark, Tampa, Sterling, Va., Burbank, Sacramento and Sunnyvale.

The additional space in the Columbus facility will be available for customer use immediately and the Sunnyvale space will be available by June, according to Qwest.