Telx, a provide of interconnection and colocation services in strategic North American markets, announced that it plans to join forces with Neutral Tandem, (NASDAQ: TNDM) a leading provider of tandem interconnection services to wireless, wireline, cable, and broadband telephony companies, for its new Telx Ethernet Exchange. Neutral Tandem and Telx plan to connect their key Ethernet Exchange sites, helping customers to seamlessly interconnect their networks without complex, time consuming interconnection agreements, providing greater reach to their end customers. It provides Enterprise and Cloud/SaaS providers greater network choice and faster interconnections.

"We believe that our planned relationship with Telx will enable us to create the largest Ethernet Exchange platform in the nation," said Rian Wren, president and chief executive officer, Neutral Tandem. "Neutral Tandem's proven track record with interconnecting carriers across the U.S., combined with Telx's strategic data center locations, will form the basis for a winning combination. With this planned collaboration, Telx's service provider ecosystem will be able to leverage Neutral Tandem's expansive network, while our customers will have access to the 800+ Telx customers in their strategic interconnection centers."

Under the planned relationship, both Neutral Tandem and Telx's Ethernet Exchange offerings will be built using the same unified exchange fabric, resulting in a seamless customer experience regardless of location. As such, Telx's Global Marketplace of service provider customers will be able to extend their geographic service regions by tapping directly into Telx's seven Ethernet Exchange locations as well as Neutral Tandem's planned 14 Ethernet eXchange locations nationwide. The combined platform will provide service providers with an easier, more cost-effective way to connect their Ethernet networks without going through the time-consuming, costly process of setting up individual, complex interconnection agreements or building out local fiber networks themselves.

Telx Ethernet Exchange will become available in seven of its strategic interconnection data centers over the next nine months. Neutral Tandem previously announced plans to launch its Ethernet eXchange in 14 markets this year. Once implemented, the planned relationship will allow customers of the Telx Ethernet Exchange to leverage the Neutral Tandem exchanges in the same metro areas and across the wide area for even more connectivity choice, while Neutral Tandem customers will have secure access to Telx's industry-leading service provider ecosystem in key locations, resulting in low-latency, resilient connections.

"Telx is excited to work with Neutral Tandem to help our service provider colocation customers expand the reach of their Ethernet networks through our new Ethernet Exchange platform," said Eric Shepcaro, CEO of Telx. "Our relationship with Neutral Tandem, a company with the same carrier-neutral approach Telx has used to build its Global Marketplace of customers, is a great fit as we ramp up services. With the addition of Neutral Tandem's locations, Telx can offer the most comprehensive, cost-effective virtual Ethernet interconnections to our customers, who will no longer be limited to specific geographic regions for reliable Ethernet connectivity."