Westin Building
Encyclopedia
The Westin Building is a major telecommunications hub and carrier hotel facility located in downtown Seattle, Washington
. Though building receives its name from the Westin that made its home there when the building was first completed, it is also home to the Seattle Internet Exchange (SIX)
and Pacific Northwest Gigapop's Pacific Wave Exchange.
The facility has a pair of "Meet-me Rooms" on the 19th floor, which are used by telecommunication carriers
and internet service providers to cross-connect their individual networks. These carriers situate their POP
s within racks spread throughout the building utilizing optical fiber
cabling back to the meet-me room thereby facilitating interconnection with other carriers' infrastructure within the building. The Westin Building's meet-me room is the heart of the facility, where buyers and sellers of broadband
services offer interconnectivity to their backbones
and diverse services without the need to utilize telephone company provided interconnections.
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
. Though building receives its name from the Westin that made its home there when the building was first completed, it is also home to the Seattle Internet Exchange (SIX)
Seattle Internet Exchange
The Seattle Internet Exchange is an Internet Exchange Point situated in the Westin Building in Seattle, WA, in the USA. The SIX is a fast growing, neutral and independent peering point which was created as a free exchange point sponsored only by donations...
and Pacific Northwest Gigapop's Pacific Wave Exchange.
The facility has a pair of "Meet-me Rooms" on the 19th floor, which are used by telecommunication carriers
Telephone company
A telephone company is a service provider of telecommunications services such as telephony and data communications access. Many were at one time nationalized or state-regulated monopolies...
and internet service providers to cross-connect their individual networks. These carriers situate their POP
Point of presence
A point of presence is an artificial demarcation point or interface point between communications entities. It may include a meet-me-room.In the US, this term became important during the court-ordered breakup of the Bell Telephone system...
s within racks spread throughout the building utilizing optical fiber
Optical fiber
An optical fiber is a flexible, transparent fiber made of a pure glass not much wider than a human hair. It functions as a waveguide, or "light pipe", to transmit light between the two ends of the fiber. The field of applied science and engineering concerned with the design and application of...
cabling back to the meet-me room thereby facilitating interconnection with other carriers' infrastructure within the building. The Westin Building's meet-me room is the heart of the facility, where buyers and sellers of broadband
Broadband
The term broadband refers to a telecommunications signal or device of greater bandwidth, in some sense, than another standard or usual signal or device . Different criteria for "broad" have been applied in different contexts and at different times...
services offer interconnectivity to their backbones
Internet backbone
The Internet backbone refers to the principal data routes between large, strategically interconnected networks and core routers in the Internet...
and diverse services without the need to utilize telephone company provided interconnections.