What infrastructure piece doesn't the combined company of AT&T and Time Warner need to own? We know the answer to that question now: colocation. AT&T announced late last week that it is selling its data center assets to Brookfield Infrastructure.
Brookfield will continue to operate the assets and AT&T will be leasing and reselling from them, so not much will change immediately on the ground.
The two describe it as a strategic alliance, and it covers 31 data centers, 18 of which lie within the US and 13 elsewhere around the world. AT&T will of course have its hands full integrating Time Warner and its other assets into a coherent operation, so a bit of simplification is entirely understandable.
Thus AT&T becomes the latest major US telecom operator to separate itself from the actual colo business. Verizon sold its facilities to Equinix over a year ago, and Windstream unloaded its to TierPoint, and CenturyLink spun off its to what is now Cyxtera -- although now it owns the Level 3 footprint too.
Carrier neutral colocation and self builds by the webscale guys have long been where the action is, and network players haven't traditionally found the sector easy to crack -- except perhaps for interconnection-focused data center players like Zayo's zColo.
Brookfield will be paying $1.1 billion for the assets, which AT&T will use to pay off debt. Just where Brookfield will take the assets is an open question.
I don't have a lot of information about the actual data centers, but perhaps when we learn what Brookfield rebrands AT&T's colocation business as they will tell us a bit more.
This article was authored by Rob Powell and was originally posted on Telecomramblings.com
Rob Powell is founder & editor of Telecom Ramblings, which was set up in 2008. The website is dedicated to discussing trends and developments in the telecom industry