Street Saw Gone Wild: disrupts NY trading networks for hours on a busy Friday September 15th 2009
By David Weiss NEW YORK – September 15th, 2009 - Construction’s ability to disrupt the flow of traffic is maddeningly well known to anyone who navigates New York City streets. But it was a different kind of traffic – global data traffic – that was forced to take a major detour last Friday when a construction crew sliced through a key fiber optic communications artery with a power saw. What looked like just another hole in the ground on the corner of 16th Street and 8th Avenue is symbolic of the fragile vulnerability of NYC’s high-speed communications infrastructure. Wielding their power tools and unaware of what was just below the street’s surface, the work crew cut through fiber conduits leading in and out of 111 8th Avenue, a critical hub of Internet connectivity for global businesses. The odds are meant to be heavily stacked against one incident destabilizing the subterranean fiber grid, with redundancy and diverse paths planned to protect the many buildings that depend on their data lifelines. But this wayward slice – which took place in a tiny Achilles Heel - demonstrated the outliers that threaten NYC’s underground networks. At 1:00 PM on Friday, September 4th, 144 strands of fiber were slashed in one stroke – a buried broadband cable capable of carrying as many as 60,000,000 concurrent phone calls. The results for many financial firms from Madison Avenue to Wall Street were devastating, as they were cut off from their millisecond trading activities just as fast-trading hedge fund managers prepared for the home stretch going into the Labor Day weekend. “This latest incident, which partially shut down many of our hedge fund networks, demonstrates clearly that diversity matters,” says an engineer with firsthand knowledge, but who was not authorized to speak on behalf of his company, one of NY’s premier network providers. “Most commercial buildings in Manhattan are much more susceptible to an Internet outage than we realize. Over 99% of them move all of their Internet and VoIP traffic through a single point of entry that is quite vulnerable.” Rainbow Broadband is one company whose customers’ service never went down. Rainbow operates a diverse path, hybrid fiber microwave (HFM) network that beams broadband connections through the air to the roof tops of NYC customer buildings. Their hybrid technology has proven itself as an effective safeguard against erstwhile saws and numerous other threats laying in wait. “Our carrier class fiber backbone, combined with highly secure microwave links, is the ultimate insurance policy against random terrestrial accidents that can take down Internet and phones for hours or even days” said Russ Hamm, President of Rainbow Broadband. “This is a world where milliseconds matter. A 12-hour bandwidth outage is an eternity for financial firms. Planning for disasters isn’t just about what we can predict; it’s about what we can’t predict: a Black Swan Event. A saw could strike again at any moment.”
ALL POINTS WEST FESTIVAL BACK WITH BIG BANDWIDTH INFRASTRUCTURE FROM RAINBOW BROADBAND July 27th 2009
Fast-Moving NYC IT Provider Rainbow Broadband Quickly Connects APW Crew to
Fast Internet, Digital Phones at Flagship 3-Day Music Festival in LibertyState Park
NEW YORK – July 28, 2009: Jay-Z, Tool, Coldplay and dozens of the world's top music artists will be connecting with a state park full of fans at the 2009 All Points West Music & Arts Festival (APW). Behind the scenes, the innovative NYC IT provider Rainbow Broadband (www.rainbowbroadband.com) is connecting the crew with the digital tools necessary to make the massive three-day festival a success.
Rainbow Broadband was asked back for a return engagement after bringing critically needed IP services to the remotely located APW, in New Jersey's LibertyState Park, in 2008. Using their HFM (Hybrid Fiber Microwave) network hubs connected to fiber centers across the city, Rainbow Broadband beams their broadband network straight to commercial buildings and event locations throughout Manhattan and beyond.
While today's concert goers are enjoying the music coming off of the stage, they may not be aware of the increasingly sophisticated communications needed behind the scenes to make it happen. Dozens of phone lines and high-speed Internet connections are a necessity to the crew, as they work to make the show go off exactly as planned.
Working with the event's provider of voice, internet and 2-way radio communications (walkie-talkies), AAA Communications, Rainbow Broadband was able to quickly connect the festival's crew to highly reliable Internet services. After surveying the park site, Rainbow Broadband installed four antennas that completed very fast, 15 Mbps links from their Manhattan rooftop HUBs to festival sites.
"Today's events are calling for more and more bandwidth, thanks to increasing demand for live Webcams, intensive behind-the-scenes communications and beyond," explains the legendary Smokey Hernandez, Telecom Manager for AAA Communications. "Supplying my event clients with seamless, maximum-speed Internet connectivity is essential – having a resource like Rainbow Broadband to accomplish that is incredible."
"Everyone who works on events sites," Hernandez continues, "from the production company to site management, transportation, security, staging, ticketing -- and not to leave out tour production, musicians and crew -- all require multiple phone lines plus the fastest internet connection to be productive and do business. We provide them with internet connectivity and voice communications as if they were in their home office."
Using Rainbow Broadband's fixed-wireless solution, APW and other events organizers can avoid the layers of bureaucratic red tape that often accompany connecting the "last mile". "The remote location of APW places it too far from traditional high-bandwidth sources – connecting them with sufficient digital services would normally require a lot of lead time and a lot of digging to lay down fiber," says Andrian Lubimov, Chief Operations Officer of Rainbow Broadband. "Our fixed wireless solution is the ideal solution in these situations: It allows tremendous flexibility and reliability, whether we're linking NYC's commercial buildings or the area's most challenging live event locations."
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About Rainbow Broadband Inc.:
Rainbow Broadband provides innovative technology and solutions to New York City businesses that require competitively-priced high-speed broadband, without having to rely on the incumbent carriers' infrastructure. Using HFM (Hybrid Fiber Microwave) technology, the company has developed a fast and reliable carrier class broadband network that can deliver symmetrical bandwidth at speeds up to 100Mbs, via Ethernet, to businesses which previously were limited in access due to location or cost. Rainbow Broadband is a full service organization offering a suite of products and solutions to broadband needs of New York City metropolitan area businesses.
NYC HEDGE FUNDS, PRIVATE EQUITY FIRMS AND EZE CASTLE INCREASE BANDWIDTH SECURELY WITH RAINBOW BROADBAND July 21st 2009
NYC HEDGE FUNDS,
PRIVATE EQUITY FIRMS AND EZECASTLE
INCREASE BANDWIDTH
SECURELY WITH RAINBOW BROADBAND
Flexible,
Responsive and Cost-Effective Bandwidth of Innovative NYC IT Provider
Helps Leading
Financial Services Technology Integrator to Fully Support its Clients
Security, speed and staying on top of developments are more
important than ever in the financial services world. Technology services
provider Eze Castle Integration (www.eci.com) helps a growing number of New York City hedge funds
and investment firms to maintain highly available IT infrastructures that help
keep the firms operating at peak performance. And when EzeCastle’s
clients need to securely expand their bandwidth the choice is Rainbow Broadband
(www.rainbowbroadband.com).
Using their HFM (Hybrid Fiber Microwave) network hubs
connected to fiber centers across the city, Rainbow Broadband beams their
broadband network straight to commercial buildings to most locations in Manhattan. A carrier class
service, the Rainbow Broadband network provides EzeCastle
with a highly flexible solution to the bandwidth needs of their demanding
clientele. EzeCastle
delivers the Rainbow Broadband solution as part of its ECINet Wireless product,
which provides high-speed, highly available and secure Internet access. ECINet Wireless also features proactive
monitoring as well as enhanced management and security features including
intrusion detection.
“We have to stay as nimble as possible today. NYC’s financial
services firms are looking for the best service at the best rate,” says Matthew
Bretan, Senior Business Consultant for Eze Castle Integration. “Rainbow
Broadband’s approach allows us to come in with competitive pricing, rich
features, and additional redundancy that ensures clients have an extremely dependable
network.”
Bretan points out that today’s financial services firms are
built to react quickly to changes in the marketplace, making the extremely fast
bandwidth – available at speeds up to 100 Mbps – of Rainbow Broadband a
necessity. “Hedge funds need to be able to pull in market feeds and act on the
information in a timely manner,” he explains. “The additional advantage with Rainbow
Broadband is their turnaround time of two weeks or less to get connected,
whereas with the local telco it could take eight weeks or longer to have your
T1 or DSL connection.
“Rainbow Broadband’s quick time to implement really sets
them apart, and after the network is up they monitor it very closely,” Bretan
continues. “Internet redundancy via multiple points of entry is extremely
desirable. For example, last year’s steam pipe explosion interrupted many
traditional copper wire-based connections, but Rainbow Broadband clients were
able to maintain connectivity.This
level of quality assurance makes Rainbow Broadband ideal as either primary or
backup infrastructure.”
With the security and dependability of Rainbow Broadband in
their toolkit, EzeCastle has found the
ideal bandwidth solution for NYC’s most selective financial services firms.
“Bandwidth is a data pipeline, and that’s all we want it to be,” Bretan
concludes. “We never have to troubleshoot the Rainbow Broadband network, so we
can focus on designing the infrastructure to make our clients grow.”
About
Rainbow Broadband Inc.:
Rainbow
Broadband provides innovative technology and solutions to New York City businesses that require competitively-priced
high-speed broadband, without having to rely on the incumbent carriers’
infrastructure. Using HFM (Hybrid Fiber Microwave) technology, the company has
developed a fast and reliable carrier class broadband network that can deliver
symmetrical bandwidth at speeds up to 100Mbs, via Ethernet, to businesses which
previously were limited in access
due to location or cost. Rainbow Broadband is a full service organization
offering a suite of products and solutions to broadband needs of New York City metropolitan
area businesses.
NYC POST PRODUCTION HOUSE MEGA PLAYGROUND EXPERIENCES ON-DEMAND BANDWIDTH EXPANSION WITH RAINBOW BROADBAND May 29th 2009
Clients of Film & Video Post House Benefit from Flexible, Responsive and
Cost Effective Bandwidth of Innovative NYC IT Provider
NEW YORK – May 26, 2009: The demand for speed in digital delivery of film and video post content keeps increasing, but the limitations of New York City's aging communications networks can make it difficult to keep up. One post facility that's staying ahead of client needs is Mega Playground, which calls on the flexible, cost-effective bandwidth of Rainbow Broadband to move at major motion picture speed.
"Our choice of broadband provider comes down to efficiency, reliability and economics – Rainbow Broadband excels at all three," says Terry Brown, CTO of Mega Playground. "Digital delivery of content has been the standard for years in Los Angeles, but it's only relatively recently become the expectation here in NYC.
"We often move hundreds of gigs of data every day," Brown continues. "That requires far more than your standard T1 or DSL line. With Rainbow Broadband, we move dailies to LA on a nightly basis, while everyone else in the facility keeps running smoothly."
With locations in Greenwich Village and Midtown offering comprehensive services including telecine, dubbing, post synching laybacks and sweetening, and editing, Mega Playground routinely hosts film and video production for weekly and monthly projects. For feature film clients that have included Sony, Warner Brothers, Rogue Pictures, and Columbia Pictures' upcoming film The Bounty, Mega Playground turns to the flexible bandwidth of Rainbow Broadband to meet their constantly changing broadband needs.
Using their competitively priced WiMAX technology, Rainbow Broadband can adjust the bandwidth of its connection – available at speeds up to 100 Mbps – on extremely short notice to NYC businesses. "Getting increased bandwidth is just a phone call away," says Jeremy Scott, Facilities Manager for Mega Playground. "Rainbow Broadband is always incredibly quick to respond. The ability to get technical support immediately is extremely important, and Rainbow Broadband delivers that in a way that the major carriers can't."
Using their WiMAX network hubs connected to fiber centers across the city, Rainbow Broadband can beam their broadband network straight to commercial buildings to most locations in Manhattan. Rainbow Broadband can also link new buildings and customers as quickly as 72 hours – instead of the month or more that many other ISP's require.
The result for Mega Playground is completely transparent, reliable high-speed bandwidth that allows them to move at the precise pace – and budgets – that their clients require. "This business is never the same two days in a row," Scott concludes. "You have to be able to watch your operating costs whenever you can, but jump when you need to for a major project. Rainbow Broadband is a dynamic IT provider that can grow as we do."
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About Rainbow Broadband Inc.:
Rainbow Broadband provides innovative technology and solutions to New York City businesses that require competitively-priced high-speed broadband, without having to rely on the incumbent carriers' infrastructure. Using WiMAX technology, the company has developed a fast and reliable broadband network that can deliver symmetrical bandwidth at speeds up to 100Mbs, via Ethernet, to businesses which previously were limited in access due to location or cost. Rainbow Broadband is a full service organization offering a suite of products and solutions to broadband needs of New York City metropolitan area businesses.
