cix, data centre, hosting

Views from the CIX mast

We are erecting a 24 metre mast outside our CIX data centre in Cork.

I was curious to know what the visibility would be like for our mast’s customers (we will be renting out space on the mast) so yesterday when we had a cherry picker onsite I had the driver lift me 10 metres and I took some photos.

I posted the photos on the mast’s page but, for example, looking East-South-East from 10m above the mast’s site you can see the former IFI plant on Great Island (8 miles as the crow flies)!:
View from CIX Mast

Remember these photos were taken from a height of 10m and the mast, when erected later this month, will be a full 24m!

[Disclosure] – I am a director of CIX

8 thoughts on “Views from the CIX mast”

  2. Thanks Antoin,

    there’s no “up there” yet though. I was on a cherry picker. The mast will be erected in 3-4 weeks.

  3. I’ll back up Antoin and VOTE 4 a webcam – in fact 4 of them; each pointing N/S/E/W.

    While u’re at it put up a wind vane and measuring “stuff” – sure the MetEireann guys (if thats what they’re called these days) would give u the equipment 4 free as they’ll get a new vantage point (depending on where they have other ones)

    what process did u have 2 go thru 2 get the mast erected?
    Planning permissions?
    What about for the types of “stuff” that will be erected on the mast- cellular, micro-wave etc..
    Is all the stuff yours ? (e.g. back-haul/secondary routes for Wifi, WiMax etc..)

    With that Mast u thinking of becoming a WISP (WiMax etc?) – u talking with Evert?

    Lal

  5. Brendan,

    we received the planning permission for the mast last Dec/Jan. All kinds of stuff will be put on the mast – it will depend on what the mast customers want to put there! We won’t be a WISP. WISPs will be our customers.

    Vincent – it is difficult to say for sure from this photo but I’m 90% sure the NSC is visible from a 10m height and I’d be 99.9% confident that it will be visible from higher on the mast.

  6. Thanks for the reply Tom.

    My broadband provider’s network (Rapid Broadband) access network is routed through the NSC. From a traceroute:

    fe0-0-0-53.edge1.nsc.crk.stisp.net (84.203.232.209)

    Are there any plans for peering between ISPs and other Cork networks? A Cork INEX if you will. I know your name is Cork Internet Exchange but I didn’t see this spelled out elsewhere.

  7. Vincent,

    we certainly hope to have as many telcos and ISPs as possible peering in our building and we are doing everything we can to make this an attractive proposition to them. Access to the mast is just one arm of that strategy.

  8. One other quick point Vincent, the traceroute line you displayed is on a Smart Telecom network. Our mast will have line-of-sight to the Smart Telecom communications equipment in Cork Airport Business Park (you can actually see their antennae in one of my photos!).

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