New York has played a vital role in the global telecommunications hub since at least the early 1920’s. And just like New York City, its internet infrastructure is messy, sporadic, and complex.
One of the main entry’s into the cities underground infrastructure is through manholes, which are labeled with their respective corporate owners. The Empire City Subway was formed in 1891 to create and maintain pneumatic tubes for telegraph and telephone companies. What were once telegraph companies are now home to major internet facilities.
Today, the Empire City Subway is a subsidiary of Verizon and owns around 11,000 manholes and over 58 million feet of cable. The company leases portions of its cable network to telecommunications companies.
Another major player in New York’s underground infrastructure is Level 3 Communications, a major Tier-1 network who started building its fiber optic network in New York City in 1999.
No matter what New York data center houses the servers you use for your VPS, the first hop for all Manhattan traffic is going to be relayed through the same facilities at 60 Hudson or 111 Eighth Avenue, a landing site for many cables running through Europe, the Caribbean, and even South America.
This is due to the fact that these buildings are essentially carrier hotels housing over 100 telecommunications carriers and around 300 international networks providers. With this, there is an endless variety of connectivity options to choose, including major players like AT&T, Level 3, Deutsche Telecom, CenturyLink, Verizon, Korea Telecom, and more.
To gain a more statistical understanding of New York’s internet prowess, here’s a few interesting facts:
– 4th most connected US state.
– 41.8 Mbps average state-wide speed.
– 97% broadband coverage.
– 97% of New Yorkers have access to cable service.
– 56% have access to fiber optic service.
– 91% have access to DSL service.
– 100% have access to mobile broadband service.
A majority of the VPS providers on this list maintain servers in New York City, with a few based in Buffalo or upstate New York. Here is our list of the top 10 New York VPS providers on the web.
