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viabandwidth

Research note

The connectivity gap: what a datacenter name and an address miss

By Steven Higashi · 2026-06-10

What did we find?

We mapped 7,847 datacenter facilities across 167 countries and verified them against network evidence. 2,416 show active or dense network connectivity and 1,534 have an operator we could independently verify. That second layer — who is actually connected and who actually operates the building — is the part a name and an address leave out.

7,847
facilities mapped
2,416
active/dense connectivity
1,534
verified operators
167
countries

The gap is not coverage — it is depth

Most datacenter directories give you a map and a phone number. That is genuinely useful for discovery, but it stops exactly where a network buyer's real questions begin: How many carriers are present? Is an internet exchange on-net? Who actually operates this building — and do they own it, or are they reselling someone else's space?

None of that is on the front of a listing, because it is hard to assemble. It takes cross-referencing network registration data, autonomous-system and announced-prefix records, internet-exchange and peering presence, and operator-domain matching — then keeping it current. That is the work we did, and the reason a connectivity layer exists here that a plain directory cannot show.

Connectivity concentrates in a handful of metros

Of 7,847 facilities, only 889 reach the highest connectivity band. They cluster: a small set of metros carry a disproportionate share of interconnection, because each network that joins a dense facility gives the next one a reason to join too.

MetroConnected facilities
Amsterdam, NL33
Frankfurt, DE29
London, GB29
Tokyo, JP25
São Paulo, BR24
Ashburn, US22
Paris, FR21
Kyiv, UA20
Singapore, SG20
New York, US20

Facilities with an active or dense connectivity band, 2026-06-10. Exact carrier and network counts are part of the operator dossier.

Why it matters for procurement

Connectivity density is a proxy for the things buyers actually pay for: lower latency to the networks you need, route redundancy when one carrier fails, and competitive transit pricing. Operator verification is a proxy for risk: a verified operator that runs its own building is a different counterparty than a reseller listing space it does not control. Shortlisting on those two signals — rather than on a name and a rate card — is the difference this dataset is built to make.

Explore the data

Figures from the viabandwidth directory (7,847 facilities), 2026-06-10. Connectivity bands derive from PeeringDB and RIR data; see the methodology.