The Coming Level 3 Global Crossing Juggernaut

If you believe that the future of business is high bandwidth connections to clouds, customers and suppliers worldwide, then the next step toward this future is the melding of Level 3 Communications and Global Crossing. Combine their assets and you have a network map that spans the world.

Level 3 Communications is actually purchasing Global Crossing for $2 billion. When this merger is complete, their combined fiber optic assets will reach 70 countries on 3 continents.

Level 3 has an extensive long haul network with metro fiber in many US cities. Their transatlantic undersea fiber connects to a European network to link the USA and major European cities with low latency fiber connections. Level 3 is a major player in the high speed financial trading space, as well as providing other high bandwidth fiber services for global business needs.

Another strength of Level 3 is video transport. Their Vyvx service carries both high definition and standard video programming for studios and networks. For the highest in transmission feed quality, Level 3 Vyvx offers uncompressed high definition video transport services between Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and New York City at 1.5 and 3.0 Gbps. The Level 3 Content Delivery Network (CDN) has 35 strategically placed cashing locations to keep the content as near the customer as possible.

What Global Crossing does is complement rather than compete with Level 3’s US/Europe network. Global Crossing has over 100,000 route miles of fiber optic cable installed around the world. This includes US and Europe network fiber that overlaps Level 3 to some extent. But it also brings trans-pacific undersea fiber and connections to Japan, China, India, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. Connected to its North America network is an extensive fiber optic networking serving the major cities in South America.

Global Crossing is true to its name. Their fiber really does span the world. Add Global Crossing’s network to the Level 3 network and you have extensive connectivity throughout North America, South America, Europe, Australia and Asia, with some facilities extending to the Middle East and Africa.

What does this mean for you, the business user? It certainly means more availability of converged IP network services worldwide and specialty services, such as low latency routes and video transport. Both Level 3 and Global Crossing have been serving major enterprise customers and carriers. They’ve got the expertise and facilities to accomplish whatever you will ever need in the way of connectivity.

Level 3, especially, also caters to smaller and medium businesses in the US. Their T1, bonded T1 and Ethernet over Copper solutions offer dedicated bandwidth at very reasonable prices. For companies that need to link multiple locations, Level 3 MPLS can create a company network that spans the country and extends to include offices, factories and warehouses worldwide.

Fiber optic networks are enjoying a new renaissance, as businesses move to cloud processes and automation that increases employee productivity. You see more fiber going into the ground in both major cities and rural areas. If you’ve been affiliated with Level 3 or Global Crossing, your connection capabilities are about to be increased significantly.

If you are looking to increase your connection speeds, you’ll probably be pleasantly surprised by the wide range of services available and the cost reductions that have come about in recent years from these and other competitive carriers. Don’t assume that you can’t get or afford higher bandwidth, even fiber, until you get prices and availability for business bandwidth services appropriate to your facility locations.



Note: Image of Earth from over the Atlantic Ocean courtesy of the U.S. Government on Wikimedia Commons

IP Transit vs Peering vs DIA

We live in a world of networks and networks of networks. The Internet is the ultimate example of networks upon networks upon networks. All of these networks need some way to communicate. For that, you have the choice of IP transit or peering.

Network to network communication would be unnecessary if the Internet was constructed the way most people envision it. When we think of the Internet, we think of one giant network that links everyone to everyone. It generally works that way for the end user, but the notion of a monolithic universal network is an illusion. Look inside the Internet and you’ll find it to be a collection of large, medium and small networks that all work together to get packets from one point to another. Let’s see what that takes.

At the top of the heap are Tier 1 networks. These are huge international IP networks that have points of presence in key locations around the world. Tier 1 networks are indeed the superhighways of the Internet. But like all highway systems, they don’t go everywhere. In order to create an Internet, you need to connect these superhighways together.

The connection process is called peering. The name suggests that this is a connection between equals or peers. That’s exactly right. Huge networks have huge amounts of traffic. If two of these networks peer to exchange traffic on an equal basis, then each network effectively doubles its reach. Network A has access to all the customers on Network B and vice versa.

Tier 1 networks peer on a settlement free basis. In other words, the networks are interconnected via high capacity routers and the traffic flows back and forth at will. Settlement free means that there are no toll booths at the border. Neither network pays the other because they are getting equal value through peering.

Not all networks are the same size. Smaller networks, called Tier 2, have less capacity and less reach than Tier 1 networks. Tier 1 networks aren’t about to peer with Tier 2 networks at no charge because the smaller network would be getting a lot more value from the arrangement than the larger one. What Tier 2 networks can do is ban together and peer among themselves to create a much larger entity that can compete with those Tier 1 networks. If they want access to the Tier 1 networks, they can pay a settlement charge based on the traffic imbalance. That charge is called IP transit.

Internet Service Providers have a choice when it comes to accessing the Internet. They can spend the capital and maintenance cost to build out their networks to the point where they can peer with other large networks, or they can just purchase IP transit services from a large network and avoid the investment in equipment and personnel.

Very small networks or medium size companies with their own internal networks will choose to buy Dedicated Internet Access rather than IP transit. You need to be a network operator with an assigned AS or Autonomous System number (ASN) that identifies each network on the Internet in order to qualify for IP Transit services. Some large organizations with connections to multiple networks may fit this definition, as well as large scale ISPs.

Everyone else, from local WISPs (Wireless Internet Service Providers) to SMBs (Small to Medium Size Businesses) simply purchases Dedicated Internet Access by the Mbps or Gbps of bandwidth. Operation of the Internet is left to those networks who specialize in that service.

What type of Internet connectivity makes the most sense for your business? It depends on whether you are a large ISP, a content delivery network, a large corporation with international locations, or a network of retail stores. Why not compare pricing options for IP Transit, Peering, or Dedicated Internet Access, as appropriate? Complementary consulting services are available to help you sort through the possibilities.