BBT
Ensuring connectivity to IT infrastructure in the Permian Basin

Permian Basin, occupying the western part of Texas, is one of the booming economic hotspots due to its rich reserves of petroleum, natural gas, and potassium. Sharing borders with New Mexico, the rugged terrain of the basin is calamity-prone, posing disturbances in the area’s connectivity and communication with the outside world. For instance, the massive snowstorm that struck Texas last year forced businesses and government agencies to go offline due to the lack of reliable power sources.

Headquartered in Alpine, TX, Big Bend Telephone (BBT) ispowering the transformation of Permian Basin’s digital infrastructure into a robust one with services that span connectivity, cloud, managed solutions and professional services.

As a long-time telecommunications technology provider, BBT has been offering reliable and compliant services for businesses and residents across West Texas since the 1960s. Addressing the apparent demand for an energy-efficient and reliable IT infrastructure that can safely and securely co-locate critical business assets, the company’s new data center in Midland is an aggregation point for communication services in the Permian Basin. The facility provides guaranteed power and up-time, improving connectivity and safety in the oilfields and the surrounding digitally underserved communities of West Texas.

BBT’s phase one of the Midland 1 Data Center is built to Tier II standards and has a capacity for 70 racks equipped with hot aisle containment and 2,500 sqm of floor space. It is the first colocation facility in the Permian Basin, with a highly scalable network-as-a-service platform, PacketFabric, that ensures fast, easy, and scalable solutions for network connectivity. The improved network performance due to PacketFabric’s software-defined networking (SDN) enables clients access to over 200 data centers worldwide.

Located near the Midland International Airport, the BBT data center shares the airport’s Tier I power grid and has redundant generators for power backup. The facility serves as a network hub, catering to a vast clientele across the energy sector, local government, municipalities, school districts, banking institutions, and hospital systems. BBT serves as the primary provider for 911 emergency circuits for the regional council of government in the Permian Basin and helps municipalities secure the systems against ransomware and phishing attacks. The company also manages traffic from border patrol, customs, and immigration control that traverse their network, as well as educational institutions that fall under the regional school system.

BBT’s business model is built on long-term relationships developed over the years as a telecommunications provider. One of the company’s anchor tenants is undertaking a broadband initiative in the Permian Basin to expand broadband access to severely underserved areas in the region. The project aims at improving the broadband transmission at the wellhead in the drilling and fracking sites as well as in rural communities.

With our data center services, companies across the industries can maintain business continuity with scalability, efficiency, state-of-the-art technology, colocation, and backup solutions

“BBT’s data center is transforming the way business is done in West Texas. Reliable and secure IT infrastructure is more critical than ever and BBT is at the forefront of enhancing business capabilities and sustainability,” says Neville Haynes, VP of Data Center Operations, BBT.

BBT is gearing up toward the phase two expansion of their Midland data center with an additional 300 racks capacity. By delivering cost-effective and scalable solutions for their clients’ distinct needs, BBT’s mission is to bring people together and keep the West Texas community connected with the rest of the world.