About Metro Colo Advisory. NYC's Independent Colocation Advisor
Built specifically for mid-market NYC companies who deserve the same infrastructure expertise that enterprise firms take for granted, without the enterprise price tag.
Why Metro Colo Advisory Exists
Every business Metro Colo Advisory was built to serve has had the same experience at some point.
You needed colocation infrastructure. You did your research. You called a provider — maybe Equinix, maybe Digital Realty, maybe someone else. Their sales team was professional and responsive. You got a proposal. You negotiated a little. You signed a contract.
And you had no idea whether what you signed was a good deal.
No benchmark. No independent perspective. No one in your corner who knew what comparable companies were actually paying. Just you, a sales rep whose job was to close contracts at the best possible terms for their company, and a contract that would govern your infrastructure costs for the next three to five years.
This is how the overwhelming majority of mid-market NYC companies buy colocation. And it is why the overwhelming majority of mid-market NYC companies are overpaying.
Metro Colo Advisory was built to change that. To be the resource that NYC mid-market companies find before they call the provider directly. To put independent expertise on the client side of the table — at no cost to the client — so that going direct is a choice rather than a default.
The NYC colocation market is one of the most valuable and most complex infrastructure markets in the world. It deserves a dedicated independent advisor. That is what we are.
Metro Colo Advisory is led by James Mercer, Principal. James is a New York-based colocation advisor who founded Metro Colo Advisory after watching mid-market NYC companies consistently overpay for infrastructure because they had no independent advocate in their corner.
He brings current market intelligence, established provider relationships, and a straightforward advisory approach to every client engagement — with one goal: making sure you never pay more than the market actually bears.
What Independent Actually Means — And Why It Matters
The word independent gets used loosely in the advisory world. Here is what it means at Metro Colo Advisory specifically.
We have formal channel partner relationships with every major NYC metro colocation provider, Equinix, Digital Realty, CoreSite, DataBank, Sabey, Telehouse, and others. We earn commissions from all of them equally when we place a client. No provider pays us more than another. No provider relationship influences our recommendations.
Our only financial incentive is placing clients in the right facility. If we recommend a facility that is wrong for a client, that client does not renew with us, does not refer us, and tells others about their experience. Our reputation is our entire business. It is worth more than any single commission.
This is why we give clients honest assessments of every provider, including where each facility is the wrong fit for a specific situation. It is why we tell clients when staying on cloud is the right answer. It is why we recommend competitors’ facilities when they fit better than the ones we might prefer for other reasons.
Independence is not just a marketing claim for Metro Colo Advisory. It is the only business model that makes sense for a firm whose entire value proposition is trusted advice.
The Companies We Work With
Metro Colo Advisory was built for a specific segment of the NYC market that has been consistently underserved by the existing advisory landscape.
The large enterprise firms
Fortune 500 companies, major financial institutions, hyperscale technology companies, have dedicated infrastructure procurement teams, relationships with JLL and CBRE data center practices, and the negotiating leverage that comes with multi-megawatt deal sizes. They are well served.
The very small companies
Startups under 20 people, single-rack deployments — are served adequately by direct provider relationships at standard retail pricing.
The mid-market
Companies spending between $5,000 and $100,000 per month on infrastructure, typically 30 to 500 employees, in industries like financial services, healthcare, law, fintech, and media — has no dedicated advocate. They are too large to be served well by generic quote aggregators and too small to command the attention of enterprise-focused advisors.
That is our market. Specifically and intentionally.
We work with:
Hedge funds and boutique asset managers that need financial ecosystem infrastructure and compliance-ready facilities without a dedicated procurement team. Healthcare and life sciences organizations that need HIPAA-certified infrastructure and cannot afford a compliance failure. Law firms that need physical control over sensitive client data in facilities with documented security and access controls. Fintech companies whose cloud bills have outgrown the economics of public cloud and who need someone to run the numbers honestly. Media and entertainment companies that need carrier-dense infrastructure for bandwidth-intensive workloads at competitive pricing.
If your company is in the NYC metro area and spending meaningful money on infrastructure — or about to — we are the advisor that the market has been missing.
How We Work — The Metro Colo Advisory Approach
Every client engagement at Metro Colo Advisory follows the same philosophy regardless of deal size or industry.
We listen before we recommend.
The five questions we ask on every first call are not a sales qualification script. They are a genuine effort to understand your specific situation before we form any opinion about what you need. We have seen too many companies end up in the wrong facility because an advisor recommended based on what they had available rather than what the client actually needed.
We bring real market intelligence.
We know what comparable companies are paying right now. Not list price. Not the rate on the provider's website. Current contracted rates for mid-market deployments in the NYC market. That benchmark changes the dynamic of every negotiation we enter.
We create genuine competition.
The most effective tool in any negotiation is having multiple parties competing for the business. We run competitive evaluation processes that give clients real options — not a token alternative thrown in to make the preferred provider feel like a win. Real competition produces real pricing improvements.
We stay with you through signing.
Our involvement does not end when a client says they like a provider. We review every contract before it is signed. We flag unfavorable terms — escalation clauses, auto-renewal provisions, minimum commitments that do not match actual usage, remote hands rates left open-ended. The contract review stage is where we earn our advisory fee most clearly — even though that fee comes from the provider not the client.
We build long-term relationships.
A client whose contract we managed is a client we stay in contact with. Quarterly check-ins. Renewal evaluations that start 12 months before expiration. Market updates when conditions change meaningfully. The goal is not a single transaction. It is an ongoing advisory relationship that compounds in value over time.
Our NYC Metro Market Coverage
Metro Colo Advisory focuses exclusively on the New York City metropolitan area — Manhattan, the five boroughs, and the broader tri-state infrastructure market including Northern New Jersey and Westchester.
This geographic focus is intentional. The NYC metro colocation market is complex enough to justify dedicated specialization. The financial ecosystem in Secaucus, the carrier hotels in Manhattan, the emerging campuses in the outer boroughs and New Jersey — each has specific characteristics that matter to mid-market clients and that require genuine local market knowledge to navigate well.
We know this market. We know the buildings, the channel managers, the current pricing, and the available inventory. That local depth is what makes the advice we give worth having.
For clients with secondary site requirements outside the NYC metro — disaster recovery deployments, distributed architecture needs — we work with our national provider relationships to serve those requirements.
But our primary expertise and our primary value is the NYC metro market.
Primary Market Coverage:
- Manhattan — all major carrier hotels and enterprise facilities Secaucus and Northern
- New Jersey — Equinix campus and surrounding ecosystem
- Orangeburg and Westchester NY — emerging campuses and DR options
- Staten Island — Telehouse and internet exchange infrastructure
- Brooklyn and Queens — emerging interconnection and edge infrastructure
Ready To Work With NYC's Independent Colocation Advisor?
The conversation that gets you real market intelligence for your specific situation takes 20 minutes and costs you nothing.
Fill out our free assessment and tell us about your current infrastructure situation, your requirements, and your timeline. We will come back within 24 hours with specific recommendations based on the current NYC market — not generic advice, not a list of providers, but a real recommendation for your specific situation.
No cost. No obligation. NYC’s only independent colocation advisor working exclusively for mid-market companies.
