So there was an article in The Bulletin and another article on Data Center Knowledge about a “well-funded, well-known company” wanting to build a large datacenter in the Prineville area. Anybody have any theories as to who it might be? Naturally it’s cloaked in secrecy, and everybody involved has had to sign NDAs. I wouldn’t think it’d be Google, as they already have a datacenter in The Dalles, which is just a few hours away, but Yahoo! or Microsoft might be possibilities.
I also wasn’t aware that the fiber-optic infrastructure was in place in Prineville for a large datacenter. Any datacenter worth its salt will need redundant pipes in and out of the building, and while I know there’s fiber all along the I-84 corridor (which is why it was an easy decision for Google to build in The Dalles), is there such a thing running along Highway 126? Searching around on Google, there’s an image here that shows a fiber ring running through Prineville, but I don’t know exactly what that map is for or when it was created. I have a feeling it was something that had to do with Senate Bill 622, which was the bill in 1999 that required self-healing fiber rings in rural Oregon, but I have no idea if those rings were completely created or not, as I don’t trust Qwest as far as I can throw them (I’ll look into it when time allows — or not, as I do have a day job).
(And if anybody wants to send through an totally unsubstantiated rumor and remain anonymous, send it to utterlyboring [at] gmail [dot] com. Unless you know Google’s behind this, then that probably wouldn’t be a good idea — comment anonymously below instead.)
Update: Looking around the net, Quantum Communications and Bend Broadband provide business services to Prineville, which means they probably have fiber running right down that highway, as does Qwest, so between the three of them, they should be able to provide some decent amount of bandwidth for whomever is planning on moving in.
