Volterra Report
Legacy Fiber, Lasting Impact
How 1990s Telecom Overbuild Made Ashburn the Data Center Capital
Synopsis
A four-act account of how early interconnection gravity, aggressive telecom construction, the fiber bust, and cloud-era reuse created Ashburn's durable network advantage. The report reframes the region as an infrastructure inheritance rather than a single data center boom.
Key takeaways
- Interconnection gravity made Northern Virginia a rational place to build network capacity before hyperscale demand arrived.
- The telecom bust repriced the network layer without removing the physical infrastructure.
- Replicating Ashburn requires fiber optionality and market structure - not simply conduit, land, or incentives.
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Research applied
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