Carrier hotel (telecom hotel)

How it works, part by part

1. 1
   The landlord’s building. A commercial landlord owns and runs the building and rents out its floors.^[1]
2. 2
   Meet-me vault. A concrete box at the edge of the property where carriers’ fiber comes in. More than one gives more routes in, and carriers need not share ducts.^[3]
3. 3
   Path into the building. Cables run from the vaults through reinforced trenches into the building.^[3]
4. 4
   Cross-connect room. Where the carriers’ fiber from the street arrives.^[3]
5. 5
   Meet-me room. The central space where network companies physically connect their networks and exchange traffic.^[4]
6. 6
   Carrier rack space. Carriers mount their optical equipment here and pass incoming services on to clients or other providers.^[5]
7. 7
   Distribution frame. Marks where the carrier’s wiring ends and the tenant’s begins. This is where companies link up with each other.^[5]
8. 8
   Cross-connect. A cable that makes a direct link between two pieces of equipment in the building, such as a tenant’s and a carrier’s.^[6][7]
9. 9
   Carrier floor. Network companies install the kind of equipment found in a telephone company’s central office.^[1] In the guide: Data halls and servers
10. 10
    Other tenants. A business can put its equipment in the building and cross-connect to any provider there, instead of building fiber out to each one.^[8] In the guide: Data halls and servers
11. 11
    Power equipment. Sized for a high concentration of active networking equipment.^[9] In the guide: Transformers and switchgear
12. 12
    Cooling units. Keep rooms such as the meet-me room within their temperature range.^[3] In the guide: Cooling inside the building

How power moves

1. True of data centers generally Power usually arrives from the utility at a higher voltage. A transformer steps it down, and it passes through switchgear and backup equipment before it is shared out to the racks.^[10] Part 11
2. This type One operator explains that these buildings are built for a high concentration of active networking equipment, with power and cooling sized to match.^[9] Beyond that, the sources captured here describe no power path special to these buildings. Part 11

How heat moves

1. True of data centers generally In air-cooled halls, the aim is to keep cooling air from mixing with hot exhaust air.^[11] Parts 9, 10
2. This type The meet-me room needs cooling of its own, and its operator plans that around the equipment carriers will install.^[3] Parts 5, 12

How this type differs

These differences come from how the sources define each type. None of them makes one type preferable.

• A telephone company’s central office, which the same 2003 report calls a collocation site, is run by the phone company. A carrier hotel is run by a commercial landlord.^[1] That report’s “collocation site” is not commercial colocation.
• A communications company’s own data center supports that company’s internal services.^[12]
• It overlaps with colocation: colocation is defined by leasing space, a carrier hotel by providers interconnecting.^[12] Colocation and leased campuses

One real example

60 Hudson Street is one example of this type, chosen by hand. It is one of 5 such examples; most records on this site are not typed, including 3,110 of the 3,115 source listings on the opening map, which can overlap.

A 2023 mortgage-trust term sheet filed with the SEC describes it as a data center/carrier hotel building.^[2]

• The term sheet describes a 24-story building of 1,149,619 square feet. That is the whole building, not data-center space.^[2]
• It says telecommunications companies exchange information in a meet-me room in the building, through fiber-optic lines.^[2]
• It says about 9.5% of the rentable area is ordinary office space.^[2]

The term sheet was written for investors in a mortgage trust, not by the building’s operators, and it says its information is not complete and may be amended.^[2]

Questions to ask about a project of this type

1. Who owns the building, and who are the tenants on record?
2. Where do networks physically meet in the building, and who controls that room?
3. How many ways can fiber enter the building, and do carriers share them?
4. Does a floor-area figure cover the whole building or only data-center space?
5. Does any electricity figure cover one tenant or the whole building?

Go further on this site

All types of data center · How data centers work · The 3D map · A megawatt of what?

Sources

1. Vulnerabilities Task Force Report, Concentration of Assets: Telecom Hotels. President's National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee, hosted by CISA. Government. Cited at section 3.0, pp. 1-2; section 3.0, p. 2; title page; section 3.0; section 3.0, p. 1. Captured 3 November 2026.
2. BBCMS Mortgage Trust 2023-C22 Structural and Collateral Term Sheet, No. 7, 60 Hudson. Filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission by the depositor of the mortgage trust. Securities filing. Cited at No. 7, 60 Hudson, The Property; page legend. Captured 3 November 2026.
3. What Is a Meet-Me Room? phoenixNAP. Operator’s explanation. Cited at meet-me vaults; design. Captured 3 November 2026.
4. Carrier-Neutral Meet-Me-Rooms (MMR). Netrality Data Centers. Operator’s explanation. Cited at What is a Meet-Me-Room. Captured 3 November 2026.
5. What is a Meet-Me-Room? A Space for Interconnection. Cologix. Operator’s explanation. Cited at second zone; first zone. Captured 3 November 2026.
6. Cross-Connect, data center glossary. Stream Data Centers. Operator’s explanation. Cited at glossary entry. Captured 3 November 2026.
7. Why Enterprises Choose Carrier Neutral Data Centers. Netrality Data Centers. Operator’s explanation. Cited at cross-connects. Captured 3 November 2026.
8. Interconnection, Part 1: What is a Carrier Hotel? Cologix. Operator’s explanation. Cited at cost benefit. Captured 3 November 2026.
9. Carrier Hotels: The Connectivity Infrastructure You Didn’t Know You Needed. DataBank. Operator’s explanation. Cited at underlying infrastructure. Captured 3 November 2026.
10. Data Center Power Equipment Thermal Guidelines and Best Practices, TC 9.9 white paper. ASHRAE Technical Committee 9.9. Standards group. Cited at power distribution overview. Captured 3 November 2026.
11. Best Practices Guide for Energy-Efficient Data Center Design (revised July 2024). U.S. Department of Energy, Federal Energy Management Program. Government. Cited at section 4. Captured 2 November 2026.
12. 2024 United States Data Center Energy Usage Report (LBNL-2001637). Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. National laboratory. Cited at Table 4.1, p. 36; p. 36. Captured 3 November 2026.

Sources were captured on the date shown and can change. An operator’s explanation is used only for how a part works, never for a definition or a comparison.