MIDLAND, Texas — A new powerhub is in Midland. It will make it faster for you to get online here across West Texas.
"We've been doing market research here for a little over five years and we determined that there was enough demand here and need for a facility like this where businesses could co-locate their critical business infrastructure in a safe, secure environment with guaranteed power and up-time," Neville Haynes, Big Bend Telephone VP data center operations said.
You could say COVID has accelerated this need.
The Big Bend Telephone company has taken on this multi-million dollar task, something they hope will benefit everyone.
"We also interconnect with the regional cog here to provide 911 services to several counties and towns in the region, as well as several school districts," Haynes said.
And the premise of their task?
"This facility will serve as an aggregation point for that data to help get it out, get that data out of the Permian Basin," Haynes said. "Much like we were having trouble a few years ago getting oil out of the Permian, the same is with data."
Right now, the vice president of the center tells me they already have interest from about 30 companies.
In reference to that whole power grid failure we experienced a few months back, he says not to worry.
"We have backup systems, upon backup systems, upon backup systems," Haynes said.
Also, they're already sharing the airport's power grid, which has priority.
"It's become more and more important to everyone's lives to stay connected, which is one of the driving forces behind what we do at BBT and it's also the driving force behind why we decided to invest in the midland community and the Permian Basin region," Haynes said.