I found last week’s trip to 325 Hudson fascinating on a few different levels. The first was how steeped in telecommunication history and infrastructure the property had to be to eventually become a carrier hotel in the capacity it acts in. Between being in close proximity to the AT&T HQ and having a tap for the undersea cables going from both France and the UK, having different owners who seemed to have varying levels of knowledge of what they had on their hands, to eventually being developed by Hunter and his team. This wandering path really dovetails with the notion of how unregulated internet infrastructure is in the U.S. 325 Hudson became what it currently is because of smart business decisions (not detracting from Hunter’s technical knowledge and beliefs on how the internet’s physical presence should be structured), not because of a coordinated plan by our government to provide infrastructure for something that touches nearly every American and is considered a basic utility. I know it’s not something that magically happened, but it seems like a miracle that the building’s potential was eventually met.

Another aspect that really kept me thinking was Hunter’s distillation of layers of internet connection to pure physical empty infrastructure to house cables. He drove home the point of the landlord only paying attention to the confines of their property. He essentially provided easy hookup solutions to network providers, which it sounds like was something they desired for a long time. This brings me to my first question: how are the other carrier hotels in NYC arranged? Are they disorganized? Clearly, part of Hunter’s business comes from being organized and neat, so it would make sense to emphasize this, but does that mean the other ones are a mess?

I am also curious what Hunter’s blueprint for fiber infrastructure looks like for his current business model. He mentioned his focus is now on developing infrastructure in cities where it does not exist yet. In his opinion, what does that look like, and how does it differ from New York City?