Data Center Cross-Connects Explained

A cross-connect is a private cable to another network in your building: you order it, the facility installs it, and we turn up your side.

Physically, it is a single cable that links two parties inside the same building. One end lands on your equipment or patch panel. The other lands on a carrier, a network, a cloud on-ramp, or another tenant in the same facility. The link is private and point-to-point, and it never touches the public internet. This guide covers who does what, how to order one, and what to send us for the turn-up.

Who does what

Three parties touch a cross-connect. The turn-up goes smoothly when each does its own part.

You, the client, order the circuit through the facility's portal or order form, using the LOA and CFA the carrier issued. You are the customer of record, so the order, the approval, and the billing for the cross-connect sit with you.
The facility owns the pathway and the meet-me room. Once your order is approved, its technicians pull the cable along the building's trays from your cabinet to the carrier's assigned position in the meet-me room, dress it, and patch both ends. Nobody else installs that cable.
Our technician does the cabinet side: installs the right transceiver, patches from your equipment to the assigned port or panel, labels both ends, reads the light levels, confirms the interface comes up, and stays on the phone with the carrier for the end-to-end test.

In a multi-operator carrier hotel such as 111 8th Avenue or 60 Hudson Street, "the facility" means the operator of your suite. It runs the order process and installs the building cable for its own customers.

Copper, fiber, or coax

Once the cable is in place, traffic runs directly between the two ports at full line rate. The link is dedicated hardware, not shared bandwidth, so it is predictable, low latency, and private. That is why interconnection-dense buildings exist. The media depends on what you are connecting:

Copper (Cat5e or Cat6 twisted pair) for Ethernet handoffs, usually up to 1 or 10 Gbps over short runs.
Fiber (single-mode or multi-mode) for higher speeds and longer runs inside the building. Single-mode is the default for carrier and 10G/100G handoffs.
Coax for legacy telecom circuits such as T1 or DS3 handoffs.

The meet-me room

Most cross-connects pass through a meet-me room (MMR). It is a neutral, carrier-agnostic space where every provider terminates its fiber and copper on shared panels. When you buy a circuit from a carrier, the facility runs a cable from your cabinet to that carrier's assigned position in the MMR, and the two are patched together. That is how one address can host hundreds of networks that reach each other without leaving the building.

Manhattan carrier hotels like 60 Hudson Street, 111 8th Avenue, and 32 Avenue of the Americas are famous because their meet-me rooms concentrate so much of the region's connectivity in one place.

How to order a cross-connect

You order it from the facility, usually through its customer portal or an order form. To place the order cleanly, you need:

Your cabinet or cage location (the A-side), with the rack and rack unit if you have a specific panel or port in mind.
The far end (the Z-side): the carrier or tenant you are connecting to, and their space or panel position.
The media and connector type, such as single-mode fiber with LC connectors, or Cat6 with RJ45.
The carrier's Letter of Authorization and Connecting Facility Assignment, described below.

Lead time varies by facility and by whether new pathway or a build-out is involved, so we cannot promise a date. Ask the facility for its current lead time when you order, and book the turn-up visit once the facility confirms the cable is in.

LOA and CFA

When you buy a circuit, the carrier issues a Letter of Authorization (LOA) and a Connecting Facility Assignment (CFA). The LOA tells the facility you may connect to that carrier's equipment. The CFA is the exact address of the port on the carrier's side: rack, panel, and position. Getting the CFA right matters most: it is the single most common place cross-connect orders stall, so check it before you submit.

What remote hands does during a turn-up

Inside your cabinet is where we come in. A cross-connect is only useful once your equipment is ready to accept it. On a cross-connect turn-up, our technician will:

Receive and rack any new switch, router, or optic that the handoff terminates on, and stage it to a known-good state.
Check the port and panel assignment against your paperwork, so the cable lands where the CFA says it should.
Install the correct transceiver (SFP, SFP+, or QSFP) and match it to the fiber type.
Patch from your equipment to the assigned meet-me-room or cabinet port, and label both ends.
Verify the link: check for light, read optical power, confirm the interface comes up, and note the negotiated speed.
Photograph the finished work, so your team can see the exact port, the label, and the cable route without flying anyone to the site.

When the far end is a carrier, our technician can stay on the phone with the carrier's provisioning desk and test the circuit end to end from the rack. That turns a multi-day back-and-forth into a single visit.

We bill turn-up work like everything else: hourly, in 30-minute increments, at the tier each step needs, with the invoice itemized. A facility's own desk bills on its own published terms, so check your rate card. The pricing and billing page explains our model.

Questions people ask

Who installs a cross-connect?

The facility does. It owns the pathway and the meet-me room, so its technicians pull and patch the cable between your cabinet and the carrier's position. You order it; the facility installs it. What the facility does not do is the work inside your cabinet, and that is where we come in.

Can an outside technician do the turn-up?

Yes, for the cabinet side. Once you, as the customer of record, add the technician to your access list or arrange an escort, they can install the transceiver, patch to the assigned port, label, read light, confirm the interface, and test with the carrier. The cross-connect cable itself remains the facility's to install. RemoteHands.nyc does turn-ups this way across the New York and New Jersey data centers we cover.

What are an LOA and a CFA?

Two documents the carrier issues when you buy the circuit. The Letter of Authorization (LOA) is the carrier's written permission for the facility to connect your cross-connect to its equipment. The Connecting Facility Assignment (CFA) is the exact position on the carrier's side: rack, panel, and port. The facility needs both to place the order, and our technician uses the CFA to confirm the cable landed where it should.

What to send us for a turn-up

We use the LOA and CFA to confirm the assignment matches what was installed, and the carrier contact and circuit ID for the end-to-end test. If you are supplying the transceiver, name it. If the facility needs an access arrangement for an outside technician, tell us what it is.

Copy this into your request:

cross-connect turn-up request

Site and cabinet or cage:
Your port and panel:
Media and connector:
LOA and CFA: attached
Carrier contact and circuit ID:
Preferred window:
Access arrangement (access list, portal or escort):

Guide