Japanese companies turn to Quincy

QUINCY - Some data centers in Quincy are temporarily working with Japanese information systems due to the earthquakes in Japan.

Japanese companies moved some of their data, website, Internet and email functions to Quincy, said Pat Boss, the Port of Quincy's government affairs director.

"The Quincy centers are handling some of the Internet traffic, while Japan is getting data centers up and running again," Boss explained.

Quincy has a fiber-optic connection to Asia, running from Edmonds, under the Pacific Ocean, to Tokyo.

"Quincy is a hub for quite a few people in Japan," Boss said. "A lot of that stuff is being routed through Quincy now."

There are several fiber providers in Quincy.

He describes the area as a fiber-optic distribution center.

In about 2005, Quincy had several fiber-optic providers, which later increased to about 14 or 15 providers because of the boom in data center construction.

"There are just huge loops around, in and past Quincy," Boss said. "There's literally a gigantic fiber-optics freeway around Quincy. Quincy has all this connectivity to the rest of the world."

Data center construction is ongoing in Quincy, with one company now building and another business expecting to start work later this spring.

"There are some huge complexes there that will have a lot of capacity and there's companies coming in to add to that capacity," he commented.

Boss claimed Quincy has 50 or 60 times the fiber-optic capacity than other Columbia Basin  communities.

There are many places to plug into in Quincy, with two distribution lines coming in from different electrical power resources provided by Grant County PUD and the Bonneville Power Administration.

Terry Brewer, executive director of the Grant County Economic Development Council, said it is very important for large data center companies to have backup power and connections.

The companies want each carrier to have more than one route, which was previously not available in Moses Lake.

"They've had that for some time in Quincy," Brewer said. "We just didn't have that kind of convergence anywhere in Grant County, except for Quincy."

Having more than one choice and backup is an important feature for data centers.

He knows those options were important for some existing large data center companies in Grant County.

There are now three different fiber carriers near the Grant County International Airport: Grant PUD, Qwest and 360networks.

He believes 360networks installed fiber for a Moses Lake company.

"If a significant project had its eye on a location that didn't have all that, it's probably doable to work with someone to install it, if you had the time," he commented.