The majority of companies can only dream of this, but Harald Summa, managing director of the operating company of the Internet hub De-Cix, can't really think of anything that could have been criticized from an operational point of view last year.

The company, which enables data transport between the individual elements of the Internet with its computers, was able to grow faster than expected during - or because of - the pandemic and increase its worldwide sales by ten percent.

43.4 million euros are now in the annual report just presented.

Inga Janović

Business editor for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

  • Follow I follow

    De-Cix continues to generate the largest part of this sum in Germany and above all in Frankfurt, which is still the world's busiest Internet hub. The site set its own record twice last year, the peak values ​​of the data exchanged in one second are over ten terabits, which corresponds to the information of several hundred films. At least as impressive growth figures, however, were provided by the relatively new international business. De-Cix-Management GmbH now earns a good third of its money with around two dozen subsidiaries in North America, Southern Europe, Russia, Dubai, Istanbul and India. Especially on the subcontinent, the Germans are unexpectedly successful, reports Summa. The De-Cix Mumbai, which was established four years ago,is now the second largest exchange hub in Asia, 280 companies such as cloud operators and telecommunications providers are connected to it. "In India business has literally exploded, we had given ourselves five years, but now we are already operating in the profit zone there," says Summa.

    A sign of digitization

    Internationally, as in Germany, this was not only achieved by attracting new customers - in Frankfurt, for example, you could even break the thousand mark.

    The far greater growth was in bandwidth, which many De Cix users added.

    This was a direct consequence of the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, in which the exchange of digital data has increased enormously.

    The internet experts felt this especially in March of last year, when suddenly all customers asked for more capacity.

    After that, Summa reports, the demand soon fell back to the usual level, only to rise to new heights almost unnoticed in autumn and winter.

    The need for a fast connection in the Internet world is unquestionably a sign of digitization, which is also leading to changes in a company like De-Cix itself. Not only is the expansion of the global presence a corporate strategy for the next few years, but also the expansion of the company's own range. For the actual connection service, i.e. the provision and installation of the technology, De-Cix has recently also offered maintenance and support for sales and marketing at the locations. And more than ever, according to Summa, software plays a role as an additional service for customers and for the automation of their own services: "It used to take three to five days to be connected to the De-Cix, now we need three to five minutes" says Summa.

    For the future, the internet expert, who was involved in the installation of the very first exchange node in Frankfurt a good 25 years ago, sees a trend towards decentralization, as data center operators are also expanding more widely. Frankfurt remains the magnet, but locations such as Munich, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and the Ruhr area are also gaining in importance. The company already operates connection points everywhere there, and Ruhr-Cix was reopened last year. “Perhaps we will soon need a De-Cix every 500 kilometers,” speculates Summa. This would make network traffic faster and delays, so-called latencies, lower. “This is the only way we can offer our customers the lowest possible latency in data transmission. For us, latency is the new currency in the next chapter of global digitization ",adds Summas board colleague Ivo Ivanov.