Launch of CityNAP Brings Critical Telecom Infrastructure to San Antonio

October 18, 2006

Over the summer, Dean McCall gave me two sneak previews of a new addition to SA’s emerging telecom infrastructure market.

Tucked away inconspicuously in downtown San Antonio sits a three story building where Silicon Valley pioneer, Frank Robles has chosen to open a much needed facility that gives technology companies yet another reason to expand or relocate here.

Yesterday, the city’s technology community came together to celebrate the opening of CityNAP, a very cool facility that gives you access to a variety of telecom carriers who provide solutions for all your connectivity needs.

Under one roof, you’ve got your choice of buying services from AT&T, Time Warner Cable, Time Warner Telecom, Neopolitan and Level 3. You just have to bring your own servers and you’re good to go.

What’s A NAP?
Don’t confuse a NAP with a siesta. A NAP is a Network Access Point. Here in the U.S., a network access point is one of several major Internet interconnection points that serve to tie all the Internet access providers together.

Business and Personal Reasons Brought Frank to SA
There’s a business reason and a personal reason that compelled Frank to move here and put this project together, the later of which I find far more interesting.

The business reason is simple: San Antonio is the only major city in the U.S. that did not have a NAP.

A market opportunity existed, and Rackspace’s Graham Weston helped Frank see the potential of bringing the facility online.

The personal reason is more interesting. Frank’s wife has family in Mexico and San Antonio is an easier and friendlier to pace to commute to and from our neighbors to the south.

Rackspace and CityNAP don't compete. They complement each other.

With Rackspace, you are renting the whole enchilada, and have access to their "Fanatical Support." With CityNAP, you bring your own gear, your technical expertise and simply rent the space that gets hooked up to the telecom provider of your choice.

Robles is widely known for defining the metropolitan Gigabit Ethernet networking market, contributing to the success of many Silicon Valley companies. Founding NanoSpace, later renamed to YIPES Communications, Robles deployed over 36,000 miles of metro Ethernet fiber networks in the top 20 Metro Service Areas (MSA) in the United States. This is now a standard service offering by every communications / telephone company in the world and the fastest growing service in demand today.

As one of the first few employees of NetCom (the very first ISP I personally used), he contributed to the launch of the company with “NetCruiser”—the first integrated web browser, designed by Peter Kaminski.

Bringing together local communications companies and their many fiber optic networks, CityNAP looks to serve the future of San Antonio as an advocate for local start-ups and more established high tech businesses needing this type of facility. Kudos to Frank having having the vision and will to bring CityNAP to fruiton.