Traditionally ISPs and peering companies have nodes located in the Docklands and many of them take capacity from one BT exchange. Griffin now takes central pipe capacity from multiple BT exchanges. Coincidentally after the node went live, BT's Ilford exchange failed and many ISPs lost broadband connectivity completely. Whilst a third of the Griffin network was affected, no end users lost service for more than a few minutes as sessions reconnected to Griffin pipes served by different BT exchanges. Since there was sufficient spare capacity in the network no customers suffered congestion and the Griffin service desk did not see an increase in reported faults.
Adrian Sunderland, Technology Director said: "We decided to open a third broadband data centre away from the Docklands area to mitigate the affect that any catastrophic failure might have on our network. At the same time we have increased the capacity of our network by 50% with additional central pipes going into the new node. Furthermore, by adding LLU operators to the network we are reducing our reliance on one carrier, whilst at the same time offering more choice and buying power to our Partners."