EVP of Corporate Development, Chris Gatch attended International Telecoms Week 2023 (ITW 2023), held in National Harbor, Maryland from May 14-17. Chris along with fellow industry veterans participated in a panel titled, “How best to meet connectivity demands across urban, suburban and rural areas”. Gatch was joined by Joop Gerlach, COO of Blue Wireless, Peter Cohen, Program Manager, Microsoft, Allen Meeks, President and COO, Mox Networks, Patrick O’Hare, COO at ZenFi Networks and moderated by Gil Santaliz, Founder and CEO, NJFX. The group spoke on how their companies are bringing connectivity to urban, rural and suburban areas and how critical connectivity is in order to communities with the necessary infrastructure.
Gatch spoke on how their business started in the Southeast, building data centers in Chattanooga, Tennessee; Birmingham, Alabama and because they have the expertise operating in the South and understanding how to operate small markets, DC BLOX ended up having the opportunity to build a subsea cable landing station in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. In addition to executing the cable landing station (CLS), DC BLOX also built a high capacity fiber network which is comparable to an interstate highway of fiber that connects people in the CLS all the way back to Atlanta, Georgia.
The group then spoke on how AI and Internet of Things (IoT) are changing and impacting the industry. Gatch was asked, “How is AI impacting your business and are you going to see more applications in your data centers?” To which Gatch replied, “We are definitely seeing impacts of AI on our business, we are seeing data localization from it and so much more data is generated by the application.”
At DC BLOX they continue to understand that businesses and communities are facing increasing challenges and they are dedicated to providing solutions to provide connectivity to the underserved communities.
