We came across a very interesting article in Wired called A Lesson in Internet Anatomy: The World’s Densest Meet-Me Room. Over 260 ISPs, including major network providers like AT&T, Sprint and Verizon, all cross-connect in a single data center in an office building in downtown LA.
Scissors and other sharp objects cannot be welcome here…
This has been going on for 20 years. So much for not having a single point of failure:
If this facility went down, most of California and parts of the rest of the world would not be able to connect to the internet. Tour one of the web’s largest nerve centers, hidden in an otherwise nondescript office building.
Yes, that’s the building. This is where 260 ISPs connect to each other. One Wilshire.
Let’s hope that no one stumbles over the wires in that data center. That could cause some serious downtime.
Note: The photos are all by Xeni Jardin (the link leads to a Flickr photo set with more images from One Wilshire).
