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MFN opens new Dublin data centre 
Thursday, October 18 2001
by Louise Carroll


Metromedia Fiber Network has opened a new data centre in Dublin representing a
USD65 million investment and the creation of 70 jobs.

Despite recent unrest in the data centre industry, Metromedia Fiber Network has
moved forward with the investment in its new CityWest facility, its largest in
Europe. The opening follows announcements in September from MFN that the company
was having financial problems, but the company's USD110 million investments in
the Dublin centre and city fibre ring had gone through before MFN was refinanced.




On 01 October MFN secured USD611 million from a consortium including Citycorp,
existing investors and vendor financing. In an interview with ElectricNews.Net
Noel Meaney, managing director of MFN in Ireland, said the company now expects to
be cash flow positive in early 2002. 



In the past few weeks Exodus went bankrupt; but Meaney distanced MFN's woes
from the troubles Exodus has experienced. He said, "We were hurt by the dot.com
fall-out, but not like Exodus. We have been fortunate that 50 percent of our
customers are enterprises such as government, finance institutions and the
pharmaceutical industry." 

  

MFN is targeting more of these large institutions with its services in the new
data centre. Meaney said, "We are an outsourcing company. We outsource our
infrastructure and sell storage on demand." The centre will also offer
co-location and connectivity services as well as disaster recovery. 



As well as announcing the opening of the data centre, MFN has finished the
extension of its Tier1 IP backbone link for connections from Ireland to
international networks and the first phase of MFN's USD40 million metropolitan
ring of 75 kilometres of fibre under the city has now been switched on. 

 

MFN also announced a new customer at the facility, Deecal International, an Irish
company that offers software and solutions for the corporate credit card
business. 



Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern who was present at the launch said, "Metromedia Fiber
Network's very significant investment in Ireland's infrastructure is highly
important to this country. It is a strong endorsement of our strategy to position
Ireland as a major e-hub for Europe." 



MFN has 30 existing employees in Ireland and expects that it will have 100 with
the additional resource requirement from the new facility in Citywest. 

MFN is at http://www.mmfn.com.