The Next Decade of Bandwidth - Part V

Wireless is the bandwidth service that gets most of the press these days, but there are big developments afoot in the wired world as well. We’ll wrap up our look into the next decade of bandwidth with what’s going on with copper and fiber optic services.

It’s no surprise that fiber optic networks are expanding. Some of this expansion is prompted by American Reinvestment and Recovery Act that appropriated $7.2 billion to expand broadband access across the country. Rural areas that have been largely ignored by commercial interests are especially targeted. With funds available for middle-mile fiber runs, competitive carriers are taking advantage of the opportunity to expand their networks.

While fiber is being trenched through the countryside to provide broadband delivery to Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs) that serve sparsely populated areas, even more fiber is being routed through metropolitan areas to hookup businesses of all sizes. Government incentives aren’t needed here. Businesses hungry for increased bandwidth either foot the bill for hookups to metropolitan fiber networks or commit to service levels that justify carriers to “light” their buildings for fiber service.

Why the interest in fiber optic connections? It’s not just mobile bandwidth that’s straining at the limits. T1 lines may have been all the bandwidth a small or even medium size business needed to handle email, general web browsing and communication with its website servers hosted elsewhere. Now, 1.5 Mbps seems a bit quaint and inadequate for all the smallest operations. What drives business now is cloud connections, Software as a Service, video conferencing, hosted VoIP and other bandwidth demanding applications.

The transition from 3G to 4G wireless also means that cellular carriers themselves are strained for fast enough backhaul connections. T1 lines works great to connect towers that handled voice calls. When users expect 10 or 15 Mbps of broadband service, fiber optics look like the ideal solution. The cost of construction, once a show stopper, becomes another part of the upgrade investment that’s paid once and offers almost unlimited upgrades for future needs.

Cloud computing is a major attraction for many businesses who find that pay-as-you-go is much easier to justify than requisitions for million dollar data center improvements. No need for racks and racks of servers, the environmentally controlled building to house them, the backup power generators, or the round-the-clock technical staff to keep everything running smoothly. Outsourcing that to a cloud service provider gets rid of those headaches, but adds a new one. How to you connect to the cloud? Low bandwidth, high latency connections will bring your operations to a grinding halt. What you need now is high bandwidth along with low latency, jitter and packet loss as a backbone to your virtual servers on the other side of the country. That means fiber optic lines and probably two of them for redundancy.

Fiber technology hasn’t been static during this expansion. Until recently you had a choice of SONET services from OC3 to OC12 and perhaps OC48. That was it. Now, Ethernet over Fiber is coming on strong as a direct competitor. Carrier Ethernet more closely matches the LAN networks that feed it. It is more scalable to meet changing business needs. Best of all, Ethernet services tend to cost less, often considerably less, than equivalent SONET fiber optic services.

But, wait! The era of copper is far from over. Just when carriers were thinking about decommissioning their twisted pair copper to let it corrode in the ground or be sold for scrap, Bonded T1 and Ethernet over Copper gain favor as business bandwidth options. While a single T1 line may be too constrained for many uses, multiple T1 lines can be bonded into a single larger bandwidth service up to 10 or 12 Mbps. Ethernet over Copper (EoC) technology uses the same twisted pair bundles as bonded T1, but a more advanced modulation scheme. EoC bandwidth is distance sensitive, but can easily deliver 10 or 20 Mbps to most businesses and 30, 50 or even 100 Mbps for short runs. Continuing development incorporating wireless techniques such as MIMO (Multiple Input, Multiple Output) for crosstalk cancelation is pushing the limits of copper into the hundreds of Mbps and even to a fiber-like Gigabit per second bandwidth.

The next decade of bandwidth is likely to be dominated by massive fiber optic build-outs for fixed locations, such as office and industrial parks, along with copper solutions to bridge the gaps where fiber doesn’t yet connect. Wireless is clearly headed for a common 4G LTE nationwide infrastructure. Compatibility will be built into portable and mobile devices, perhaps as prolifically as WiFi is now. There may be some surprises in store, such long range and interconnected WiFi hotspots or whitespace transmitters as wireless competitors, high bandwidth satellites covering rural areas better than spotty fiber and cable construction, and the development of much higher microwave frequencies (60 GHz and above) and even infrared mesh networks as new service options.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this speculative look into what’s likely to happen in the next 10 years or so, as our appetite for higher bandwidth Internet and private network connections demand satisfaction. There are many good options available right now to support your current business needs. You may not even be aware of how much development has been going on in your area to increase service levels and reduce costs. This would be an excellent time to get competitive options and quotes for business bandwidth services.

See what's available now in the way of T-carrier and Ethernet copper, SONET and Ethernet fiber, fixed wireless and Hybrid Fiber Cable (HFC). Get instant bandwidth pricing up to 1 Gbps and fast quotes on other services.



This has been a 5 part series on bandwidth. If you’ve missed any part of it, you can access Part I, Part II, Part III, or Part IV to catch up at any time.

OC-48 Pricing Reductions Make 2.5 Gbps Affordable

OC-48 bandwidth is a staple among regional Internet service providers and larger corporations. It forms the core or many fiber optic network backbones implemented as SONET rings over hundreds or even thousands of miles. Even with more availability than ever before, many businesses shy away from even considering this high bandwidth service in fear of the budget-busting sticker shock that they reasonably expect. It’s time to reconsider that decision.

OC-48 is one of the SONET (Synchronous Optical NETwork) standard service levels. These bandwidth levels pick up where T-carrier copper services leave off. DS3 or T3 lines provide 45 Mbps of transport. The equivalent OC or Optical Carrier level is OC-1 at 52 Mbps. OC-1 isn’t readily available as an actual line service. In practice the lowest level SONET fiber optic service is OC-3 at 155 Mbps. The next practical step up is OC-12 at 622 Mbps. In some areas you can get OC-24 at 1.25 Gbps, but a more popular level is OC-48 at 2.5 Gbps. Beyond that is OC-192 at 10 Gbps and OC-768 at 40 Gbps.

What makes OC-48 so popular? Many incumbent and competitive carriers constructed their fiber optic networks around OC-48, although some of the largest have moved on to OC-192 and OC-768. OC-48 is widely used for tributaries from OC-192 backbone nodes. Some newer fiber networks are built upon IP cores, completely bypassing legacy SONET technology. Many more are running MPLS or Ethernet over SONET.

One reason for this is that the SONET core is already in place, including all the routing and switching equipment. Another is that SONET is a proven technology that is widely supported and designed for carrier-class services. For instance, most SONET rings are dual rings that offer protection from fiber cuts and equipment failures. In the event of an outage, switching from one ring to another is accomplished in less than 50 mSec.

Once a technology that carriers kept for themselves, OC-48 pricing has dropped so much over the years that it is now a popular connection for many businesses. This includes large hospital and medical center networks, video producers, content delivery networks, broadband Internet service providers, computer aided design firms, businesses with substantial e-commerce activities, popular websites, and heavy users of cloud computing.

Cloud computing is something of a two-edged sword. The advantages include fast scaling of services up and down as your needs change, high reliability, and the ability to empty local data centers to avoid ongoing capital and operating expenses. What might get lost in the initial zeal to outsource to the cloud is how you connect with your new virtual data center located hundreds or thousands of miles away. All of a sudden, WAN connections that were perfectly adequate when most of the IT servers were still on the corporate campus are now sluggish and unresponsive.

If you want to maintain or regain that snappy performance that comes with high speed low latency dedicated private line connections, you’ll need to upgrade your connections between your headquarters and your cloud services providers. OC-48 fiber optic bandwidth may be just the ticket. At two and a half times Gigabit Ethernet bandwidth, you’ll have the capacity you need to avoid network congestion. With a protected service and SLA (service level agreement), you’ll have the reliable service you need for critical business operations. Finally, with recent price reductions from competitive service providers, you can now afford a level of service that previously seemed out of reach.

Have the requirements of your business increased because of business automation, new technologies such as video transport, or a move to the cloud? This is a good time to get a new set of lease prices for both Carrier Ethernet and SONET fiber optic services. High bandwidth circuits, such as OC-48, are now more affordable than ever before.

SONET Rings To Support Ethernet

The hot bandwidth service these days is Carrier Ethernet. Everybody wants it once they see the cost advantage over the WAN connection they have now. The big question is can they get it?

In most cases, the answer is yes for a couple of reasons. First, new competitive carriers are rapidly building out their fiber optic core networks based on IP from the start. These networks are tailor made for Carrier Ethernet services. It’s relatively easy to get a point to point Ethernet connection between two distant business locations and use it to link their respective LANs. The result is one larger bridged LAN that enables all employees to be on essentially the same corporate network.

The other reason that Ethernet WAN services are so readily available is that established SONET fiber optic networks are being pressed into service to deliver Ethernet to the customer. This is known as Ethernet over SONET or EoS. The core of the network is still SONET, but operations at that level are invisible to you. As far as you are concerned, your connection is Ethernet all the way.

There’s no reason that SONET can’t transport Ethernet, ATM or other protocols. It was designed as a transport technology and has been adapted over the years to carry whatever traffic required hauling. The origins of SONET, like T-Carrier, are with the telephone industry. The name is an acronym for Synchronous Optical NETwork. Note the term synchronous. That tells you SONET is set up to be a highly synchronized network. The designed is based on multiplexing thousands of small channels called DS0s that each hold one telephone call. These DS0 building blocks can be combined to create T1 and T3 lines or SONET services such as OC-3, OC-12 and OC-48.

The beauty of synchronization for circuit switched architectures based on time division multiplexing is that everything is orchestrated so tightly and you can easily multiplex and demultiplex channels and higher level services. The device that does this is called an ADM or Add/Drop Multiplexer. An ADM can drop off a T1 line, DS3, OC3 or other service at your door from a much higher speed fiber line that carries traffic for many customers.

How does Ethernet squeeze into those tiny telephone channels? It takes some doing, considering that each DS0 carries exactly 64 Kbps. That’s about the speed of an old dial-up modem. What the industry has done is replace the telephone oriented channels with large concatenated frames and various mapping techniques to more efficiently carry Ethernet packets. SONET networks can now readily carry Ethernet services from standard 10 Mbps Ethernet to 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet, 1000 Mbps Gigabit Ethernet (GigE), and 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GigE).

A feature of most SONET networks that makes them highly reliable is their twin ring design. Two separate fiber strands are used simultaneously. Each carries the same traffic, but in opposite directions. If a fault occurs in the working ring, the network switches over to the protection ring within 50 mSec. This self-healing property works best when the two rings are widely separated so that a single backhoe cut or equipment fault doesn’t take out both rings at once.

Ethernet over SONET and native IP networks are making Carrier Ethernet services of all speeds readily available for businesses looking to upgrade their bandwidth connections at reasonable costs. How much are we talking? Find out with an instant online Ethernet Fiber quote for 10 Mbps to 1 Gbps service levels. Higher bandwidths and SONET services quotes need some manual effort but will be sent to you promptly.

WAN Computer Network Connections

Computer networks are often categorized as LAN, MAN and WAN. The LAN is your local network. You design and maintain it to meet your specifications. Or, you hire a contractor to do this. When you need to connect your LAN to another LAN across town or around the world, you enter the realm of the MAN and WAN. Here’s a quick look at what’s available in the way of metro and long haul connections.

The difference between the MAN and the WAN is largely a matter of degree. The MAN is a Metropolitan Area Network. As the name suggests, MAN services are limited to a particular city or city and suburbs. It’s the right connectivity for companies that have multiple offices in the same city, a main facility and a remote data center across town, a factory or warehouse in an industrial park plus some satellite offices. Hospitals and their associated medical centers are good candidates for MAN service, especially higher bandwidths for medical image transmission.

A difference between the LAN and MAN is that you own your LAN and buy services from the MAN. A Metropolitan Area Network is typically privately owned and offers services to numerous clients. The network operator manages bandwidth and security to ensure that every customer feels like they have the network all to themselves.

Most MANs are organized as SONET rings that encircle the metropolitan area. A SONET ring is actually two fibers with the same traffic running in opposite directions. One is the primary service and the other is the backup. This is done to ensure reliability. If one fiber or its associated equipment experiences a failure, service is automatically switched to the other fiber in the ring within 50 milliseconds. SONET has designated service levels at OC-3 (155 Mbps), OC-12 (622 Mbps), OC-24 (1.24 Gbps), OC-48 (2.49 Gbps), OC-192 (9.95 Gbps) or OC-768 (39.8 Gbps). You may also be able to get DS3 service multiplexed onto an OC-3 service for transport across town.

Newer metro networks may offer Carrier Ethernet instead of SONET. Ethernet is highly scalable from as low as 1 Mbps on up through 10 Gigabit Ethernet. Popular MAN service levels are 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, and 1,000 Mbps or GigE. An advantage of Ethernet is that changes in service level can be accomplished faster than with traditional SONET. You can also get layer 2 Ethernet connectivity, such as E-Line and E-LAN, to connect your LANs at other locations into one large bridged network. The MAN itself may have an IP core or be running as Ethernet over SONET to use existing facilities.

Think of the WAN as a very large MAN and you probably won’t be far off. WAN networks may also have SONET rings or IP core networks. They are certainly fiber optic based and often with so many strands that you can lease wavelengths or even dark fibers. Many WAN networks are structured as MPLS or Multi-Protocol Label Switching networks for flexibility. A MPLS network has inherent security due to a propriety routing technology that is not IP. MPLS networks can transport any protocol by encapsulating the packets within the switching labels.

WAN networks may have a regional, national or international footprint. Some are designed with low latency paths that are especially important for financial trading. WAN networks may also peer with other networks of similar size to share traffic. The newest wrinkle is the Ethernet Exchange that exchanges Ethernet traffic without having to first convert it to SONET.

How do you connect to a WAN network? Often you can pick the connection that is both readily available and lowest in cost for your particular application. These range from T1 lines to Ethernet over Copper, Ethernet over Fiber, and SONET last mile connections. In some cases, fixed wireless access is also available. The mix of copper, fiber and wireless access should accommodate just about any need.

Do you have a need to connect your LAN to another facility across town, or to locations in other states or countries? Compare prices and availability of various MAN and WAN connectivity options to meet your requirements.

IP T1 Line Service

T1 line service has been available for decades. It originated as a proprietary telephone company technology designed as a trunk for transporting multiple phone calls between switching centers. Later, T1 was made available for businesses to support their PBX phone systems. When the Internet came along, T1 lines were pressed into service as dedicated Internet connections. But now we live in an IP world. Can T1 also act as an IP connection?

Yes, it can. That may seem counterintuitive to those who understand the origins and technology behind T1 service. The T-Carrier specifications, of which T1 is the most popular line service, describe a system organized as multiplexed channels 64 Kbps wide. That channel size was optimized to transport a single independent digitized telephone call using PCM (Pulse Code Modulation). Clearly, T1 is oriented toward the switched circuit based public telephone network.

That’s true, but the important thing to remember about digital network technologies is that a bit is a bit. It’s either true or false, one or zero, regardless of the particular physical layer or higher level protocols involved. That means that a time division multiplexing technology like T1 can be used to transport a packet oriented technology like IP or Ethernet with a little protocol conversion.

That’s essentially what’s being done when T1 lines are used for data transmission. It’s been a long time since anything but Ethernet has been the standard for local area networks. Ethernet is an IP technology, based on packet switching. Those packets can be queued up and loaded into T1 frames for transmission through T1 lines and even multiplexed into T3 and SONET frames for longer haul transmission. At the far end, the packets are offloaded and sent on their way through an IP edge router connected to the T1 CPE (Customer Premises Equipment.)

If you want to connect your Ethernet networks over metropolitan and wide area networks, one technology you’ll be interested in is called Ethernet over T1 or EoT1. This is also called EoDS1 for Ethernet over DS1.

DS1 is simply the data service or protocol that runs on T1 lines. The reason there are two designations is that T1 describes a physical line consisting of two twisted pair copper telco loops running at 1.5 Mbps. The DS1 is all the bits formated for transmission just before loading into the actual T1 line. You can take that same DS1 and feed it into an add/drop multiplexer and transport it along with many others on a T3 circuit or a fiber optic service like OC-3. At the other end, the DS1 can be demultiplexed from the other services on the same line and delivered separately.

In practice T1 and DS1 refer to the same thing to the actual user. What’s important is that Carrier Ethernet service can be delivered on a T1 line, albeit bandwidth limited to 1.5 Mbps. Who would want service that slow? Lots of companies need connectivity between locations, but don’t require high speeds. They may be using the service for retail credit card verification, communication with corporate headquarters, or to upload files to their web server. The big advantage they have with T1 lines is that they are almost universally available. If you can get business phone service, chances are that you can also get a T1 line installed. They are connected over the same telco wiring.

The competing service to Ethernet over T1 is Ethernet over Copper. That may seem like a fine line of distinction, but it is important. Ethernet over Copper (EoC) also uses twisted pair copper but a different modulation scheme that offers higher bandwidths but with distance limitations. If you are within a mile or two of the central office that has Ethernet over Copper equipment, you may be able to get 10 Mbps, 20 Mbps or even higher bandwidths from EoC. Some installations are transporting in excess of 100 Mbps over multiple copper pair.

Ethernet over T1 bandwidth can also be improved by adding more copper pair. The process of combining the bandwidths of several T1 lines into one larger bandwidth is called bonding. EoT1 bonding can deliver up to 10 or 12 Mbps to both metropolitan and rural areas, providing the equipment is available.

Are you interested in an IP connection for your computer or converged voice and data networks? If so, get pricing and availability for Ethernet over T1 or Copper now to see how much bandwidth is available for your business locations.

Fiber Maps At Your Fingertips

You’d like to move to higher bandwidth services, but you have no idea what that is going to cost. Horror stories of fiber optic construction costs abound. How can you tell if the cost of moving up from copper to fiber optic bandwidth services will be trivial or unacceptable?

The best thing you can do is get a set of competing quotes from many carriers that have facilities in your area. That’s going to take a lot of time and energy, isn’t it? Not if you approach it the right way. By going through a telecom broker, like Telarus, Inc., the effort on your part is next to nothing and you’ll have results quickly. Moreover, you get a comprehensive report that gives you pricing from all the important carriers in your marketplace.

Want to find out right this minute if there is fiber nearby? You can do this in a matter of seconds with just a quick click to the Ethernet Today Shop For Ethernet search box. All you need to do is enter the street address of your building, city, state and zip code and the system will automatically search the database and give you a map and list of buildings lit for Ethernet fiber optic service nearby.

Why Ethernet? The best prices for higher bandwidth services have changed from SONET services, such as OC-3, OC-12 or OC-48, to Ethernet over Fiber services such as 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet or 1000 Mbps Gigabit Ethernet (GigE). If you request pricing, you can also ask for equivalent SONET service prices so you can compare and see how much you are saving. In some situations, you may already be set up for SONET and happy with the arrangement. That’s fine, but you might as well get better pricing on your next contract.

Location is everything when it comes to fiber optic services. The best situation is already being in a building that is lit for the fiber optic service you want. The bandwidth level isn’t important. What is important is that someone has already paid the cost of bringing in the fiber and getting it working. Fiber has so much bandwidth capacity that there is plenty for whatever your needs require, even if another tenant in the building is already connected to that carrier.

What if you want Ethernet and your building is only lit for SONET? Have a look at the cost figures, including any construction charges, and decide whether it is better to just stick with SONET bandwidth or have Ethernet brought in. Sometimes you can get what’s called Ethernet over SONET that has better pricing than the traditional OCx service levels.

Don’t despair if you aren’t in or next door to a building lit for fiber optic service. Carriers are more competitive than ever. One or more may well waive the construction fees to get your business. The chances of this increase dramatically if you round up other tenants in the building and all offer to subscribe to fiber services with a very attractive combined bandwidth.

Here’s something else. Even buildings too expensive to light with fiber can get bandwidths far above the traditional T1 lines that come in on telco copper. Today’s Ethernet over Copper technology bonds multiple pair to bring in bandwidths of 10, 20, 50 and even 100 Mbps. That’s done over already installed copper wiring, so construction costs are minimal to nothing. This much bandwidth is adequate for many, many businesses.

Are you at least curious as to what fiber optic services may be nearby? If so, instantly check for lit buildings near your location and then request the pricing and recommendations you need to get the best deal for the least cost.

Moving From OC-3 Bandwidth To Ethernet

Many medium size and larger businesses have been using OC-3 bandwidth over fiber optic connections for dedicated Internet access, video transport, remote data backup, large file transfers between sites and other high bandwidth applications. Now, there’s a newer lower cost option that can get you as much bandwidth or more for less money.

That solution is Carrier Ethernet. You may still think that Carrier Ethernet is a specialty service found in only a few areas by even fewer service providers. Not any more. Carrier Ethernet is mainstream. There is a mad dash underway to convert TDM based networks to IP packet networks. It may not be much longer that you’ll even be able to get OC-3 bandwidth services.

It’s all about the switch from telephone technology based on individual circuits to computer network technology based on packets. What’s happened in recent years is that the vast majority of traffic around the world has changed from voice to data to video. Voice is now thought of as one more service on a converged network that can transport voice, data or video with equal ease.

OC-3 is a TDM or Time Division Multiplexing technology. It has its roots in telephony, where everything revolves around small discrete channels that each carry one individual digitized telephone call. All of those channels are carefully synchronized by giving them each their own time slot in the bitstream.

So what’s wrong with that? Nothing other than the fact that using this methodology to transport packets that aren’t the same size as channels and don’t require the TDM synchronization unduly complicates the network interface and introduces inefficiencies. An OC-3 line runs at 155.52 Mbps with a payload of 148.608 Mbps.

Ethernet is the same protocol that runs on your corporate network. What Carrier Ethernet does is enable that same protocol to run for long distances on Metropolitan and Wide Area Networks.

Is there a direct Ethernet equivalent to OC-3? Not exactly. Ethernet does have standard LAN speeds of 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, 1,000 Mbps and 10,000 Mbps. Carrier Ethernet is far more scalable, though. You can order just about any bandwidth you require. A 150 Mbps Ethernet service is pretty much equivalent to the OC-3 speed. You could, however, select 100 Mbps, 200 Mbps or some other bandwidth that more closely matches your true requirements.

Here’s something else that makes your life easier. Install a Gigabit Ethernet port and you can easily upgrade to any bandwidth up to 1 Gbps at any time. Start with 150 Mbps to match that OC-3 today and later move up to 300 Mbps, 500 Mbps, 750 Mbps or 1,000 Mbps when the need dictates. In the mean time, you’ll be paying for only what you need on that fiber optic link.

Moving from OC-3 to the next available standard of OC-12 means you’ll have to jump from 155 Mbps to 600 Mbps and wait for a technician to change out your router card or managed router. Moving from 150 Mbps Ethernet to 200 Mbps Ethernet or higher can be done with a phone call in hours or days, not potentially weeks or longer.

Best of all, Carrier Ethernet is almost always priced less per Mbps than OC-3 and similar telco services. The reasons are increased competition and a technology that is on the rise, not the decline. How much can you save by making the move from OC-3 bandwidth to Ethernet? Check fiber optic bandwidth prices and availability to find out how many competitive options are available for your business location.



Note: Graphic of router symbol courtesy of Tosaka on Wikimedia Commons.

Choosing Dark Fiber vs Lit Fiber Service

When your applications are demanding enough to require fiber optic transmission, you’re faced with a choice. Do you order one of the lit fiber services available for your business location or do you buy or rent dark fiber and create your own transport services?

The tradeoffs can be tricky, so you’ll probably want to set up a spreadsheet to compare the performance, cost and installation time for all the services you are interested in.

Installation time? By focusing strictly on cost, you can get caught in a situation where you’ll have the best deal possible... whenever they can get it installed. That can be weeks or even months if you have a particularly difficult situation. Will that meet your needs? If you do your planning well in advance, it just might. If circumstances conspire to demand an order of magnitude bandwidth increase immediately, availability may trump lease cost.

The dark vs lit fiber tradeoff is the classic own vs rent situation. Most companies choose to survey the marketplace for bandwidth services and pick the least cost solution that meets their needs. That process is made easy by using a telecom broker, like Telarus, Inc., that represents dozens of service providers. If you have enough competition for your business, you can get much better pricing than if you are eye to eye with the only telecom sales person for a hundred miles.

One characteristic of both dark and lit fiber services is that they are extremely location sensitive. There may well be accessible fiber running on your side of the turnpike and nothing on the other side, or vice versa. Some buildings have already been “lit” by a particular carrier while others remain dark. Those dark buildings may or may not justify the construction costs of bringing in new fiber connections depending on location and how much service is needed by the tenants.

Lit fiber falls into several major categories. The traditional telecom service is SONET/SDH with OC-3 as the lowest bandwidth of 156 Mbps. An OC-3 can also carry 3 multiplexed DS3 circuits at 45 Mbps each. It’s common for companies to order DS3 and have it delivered by fiber optic cables of much higher capacity. Other SONET levels are OC-12 at 622 Mbps, OC-24 at 1.2 Gbps, OC-48 at 2.5 Gbps and OC-192 at 10 Gbps.

The hot competition for fiber optic bandwidth is Carrier Ethernet. Ethernet tends to be both more scalable and lower cost than SONET where it is available. That availability is becoming more and more common, thanks to aggressive build-outs by competitive carriers and business demand for higher bandwidths at lower costs.

Typical fiber optic Ethernet service levels are 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet, 250 Mbps, 500 Mbps, 1 Gbps Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gbps 10GigE. Lower bandwidth such as 50 Mbps Ethernet that competes directly with DS3 may be provisioned on either copper or fiber, depending on the carrier’s available equipment.

Coming on strong for higher bandwidth fiber optic connections is wavelength services. When you order a wavelength, you are getting a virtual fiber all to yourself. Of course, there are many wavelengths on the same physical glass fiber strand, but they differ in color and do not interact. Wavelength services may sense for 10 Gbps requirements, with the added advantages of low latency and high security. With an entire wavelength dedicated to your use, you can use a different protocol than other customers on the fiber. You may be running Ethernet while others are running SONET.

The ultimate in flexibility is dark fiber. By leasing a dark fiber run, you have all the wavelengths at your disposal. You’ll have to buy the termination equipment for each end, but then you’ll have the option to light up as few or many wavelengths as you want. You can run a different protocol on each wavelength and even operate with something non-standard or experimental. Usually it is the largest companies with the most complex IT requirements that go the dark fiber route.

What type of fiber optic service makes the most sense for your operation? Don’t jump to any conclusions until you get a complete set of prices and install times for fiber optic options available for your business location or locations.



Note: Light bulb photo courtesy of Ulfbastel on Wikimedia Commons.

Ethernet Now Faster and Cheaper Than T1

For years, even a couple of decades, T1 lines have been the go-to professional bandwidth service for small and medium businesses. They are the most popular digital connection for good reasons. T1 lines are available, reliable, secure, dedicated, flexible and relatively inexpensive. What’s not to like?

Agreed. There’s a lot to like about T1 services. But how would you like to get even more for your money? If so, then you need to take a close look at Ethernet, especially Ethernet over Copper.

Not everyone is familiar with the newer Carrier Ethernet services. They’ve only been available for a few years and the big rush has been just recently. Ethernet over Copper, EoC, is primarily a service you find in large metropolitan areas and not in smaller towns or out in the country. It has a distance limitation. You need to be within a few miles of the service provider’s office to qualify for service. Even so, there are millions of business locations that could be served by Ethernet instead of T1. So why aren’t they?

Good question. I suspect that it is more a matter of awareness than anything else. Companies that use T1 line services know the pricing and availability. They also know that prices have been coming down so they can get great renewal pricing, especially on 3 year contracts. What they don’t know is that they can get even more bandwidth for the same pricing with Ethernet over Copper.

It’s incredible, but true. Both T1 and Ethernet cost less than $300 a month in many areas. The difference is that T1 bandwidth is fixed at 1.5 Mbps. Ethernet will give you 2 Mbps, known as 2x2 Ethernet, or 3 Mbps, known as 3x3 Ethernet, depending on the service provider for your particular location.

Yes, you can also get T1 service at 3 Mbps to match the 3x3 Ethernet bandwidth. One T1 line will get you 1.5 Mbps only, so the way this is done is to combine or “bind” two T1 lines to get 3 Mbps. The only problem is that you now have to pay twice as much because each T1 line has a cost and there is no economy of scale.

Ethernet is not only lower cost than T1, but it offers more bandwidth that is also more scalable. You can order Ethernet over Copper starting at 1 Mbps. Common speed increments include 2 Mbps, 3 Mbps, 5 Mbps, 10 Mbps, 15 Mbps and 20 Mbps. It’s possible to get other intermediate speeds, too. Binding T1 lines tops out at around 12 Mbps because of both the technology involved and the sheer cost of all those individual lines.

Ethernet keeps on going. You can easily get 10 or 20 Mbps Ethernet service, with 40 Mbps and even 100 Mbps available in some metro areas. Those connections are made over the same type of twisted pair copper wiring that is used to deliver T1. The higher speeds even rival entry level fiber optic services that may be expensive to install.

Are you considering a bandwidth increase or simply want to know if you can get a better bandwidth deal? Get pricing and availability of both Ethernet and T1 line service and see what makes the most sense for your business.

EtherSphere Spans The World With Ethernet

Global Crossing is circling the globe with standards-based Carrier Ethernet services under the umbrella of its EtherSphere solutions portfolio. For multinational corporations and other companies with an international reach, this offers one-stop shopping for a network that unites geographically diverse business locations.

EtherSphere offers a number of Ethernet services that have been established as standards by the MEF (Metro Ethernet Forum). These include Point to Point Ethernet Private Line (EPL) or E-Line and multiple private line or Ethernet Virtual Private Line (EVPL), Point to Multipoint or E-Tree, and Multipoint to Multipoint Ethernet Private LAN or VPLS (Virtual Private LAN Service) E-LAN.

This suite of standard Ethernet services accommodates whatever connectivity is needed to interconnect multiple locations. All connections are made using EtherSphere’s Smart Demarcation Network Interface Device (NID). This allows the network to monitor performance end to end, perform traffic management and offer end to end SLAs (Service Level Agreements). Customers have administrative access through the Global Crossing uCommand online portal.

The Smart Demarcation NID supports 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps and 1000 Mbps Ethernet port interfaces. Bandwidth is highly scalable and can be ordered in committed data rates from 1 to 10 Mbps in 1 Mbps increments, 10 to 100 Mbps in 5 Mbps increments, 100 to 1000 Mbps in 25 Mbps increments, 1000 to 2000 Mbps in 100 Mbps increments and greater than 2 Gbps upon request.

There are six classes of services supported on the network that are identified as premium, premium plus, enhanced and enhanced plus, and basic and basic plus. The service level agreements can be POP to POP or end to end with metrics that include frame delivery, frame delay, and delay variation by class of service, plus installation and mean time to repair.

One beauty of Carrier Ethernet is the ability to provide layer 2 switched Ethernet service over wide area networks, including international destinations. VPLS can interconnect data centers and remote locations in a bridged LAN arrangement that includes all of a company’s offices. With simple Ethernet interfaces at every location, connections between LANs are greatly simplified compared to creating worldwide networks using traditional telecom services.

Global Crossing is expanding this popular EtherSphere service to include more than 40 new locations in the United States, Europe and China by the end of 2011. This will expand the carrier and enterprise offers now available in North America, Europe, the United Kingdom, Asia and Latin America served by 150 locations served by multiservice edge routers. The expansion in China will deploy EtherSphere Layer 2 VPLS to business centers in China through Global Crossing’s extended reach partner, CITIC Telecom CPC.

Is your company multinational in structure or do you simply need to do business worldwide? If so, perhaps a more comprehensive network solution that links all of your business locations through an Ethernet WAN solution can reduce costs and improve performance. Get International Carrier Ethernet pricing and availability to compare with what you have now.

GTT Expands Ethernet Footprint With PacketExchange

Global telecommunications carrier GTT is moving to expand its Ethernet service footprint worldwide by acquiring Ethernet service provider PacketExchange.

PacketExchange is a London based carrier with an impressive 10 Gigabit fiber optic IP backbone network that covers Europe, the United States and Asia. A good portion of this network was acquired when PacketExchange acquired MZIMA Networks in 2010. The combined resources provide private line services plus MPLS and VPLS networking and peering.

GTT’s acquisition of PacketExchange reinforces the idea that we’re entering the age of Carrier Ethernet. Up till now, the world’s networks have been dominated by telephone company technology for switched circuit operations. The popular T-carrier wireline services and SONET/SDH fiber optic services were all devised to be compatible with time division multiplexed voice and data. The new paradigm is packet switched networks, with Carrier Ethernet gaining prominence.

You see this reinforced by the emergence of Ethernet Exchanges, such as Telx, that offer E-NNI (Ethernet Network to Network Interface). What E-NNI does is create a peering opportunity for IP network operators to exchange data and, thus, expand the reach of their networks. This opportunity speeds up the ability of Ethernet to take over the world’s telecommunications traffic without the necessity of one dominant international carrier to dictate standards.

PacketExchange makes a nice complement to GTT which is already a global network integrator with many POPs (Points of Presence) in the United States, Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa and South America. GTT serves 80 countries in all with a wide portfolio of Private line, Ethernet, DSL broadband, point to point Wireless and managed network services. They are often the carrier of choice for companies that need to interconnect offices across international borders. MPLS network services that are particularly useful in linking multiple locations include MPLS VPN and VPLS services.

Ethernet and MPLS networks complement each other nicely. MPLS networks use a proprietary routing technology called label switching in place of IP routing or SONET/SDH multiplexing. Label switching encapsulates virtually any protocol and transports the packets form location to location. At the network edges, packets enter and leave the network unaltered. This allows MPLS networks to support layer 2 switched services such as Ethernet Private Line and Ethernet LAN. It’s entirely possible using Ethernet access to MPLS networks to create an international bridged LAN that includes locations worldwide.

The power of Ethernet as a universal network protocol to support converged voice, video and data networks is only beginning to be seen. It’s a natural development, considering that corporate LANs long ago standardized on the switched Ethernet protocol. What makes more sense than to seamlessly expand those LANs into the metropolitan and long haul connections necessary to support regional, national and international business.

Does your company have a need to connect multiple business locations, domestically or internationally? If so, take a closer look at Ethernet business bandwidth solutions to support your organization’s technical goals at a cost often lower than with traditional telecom services.



Note: Ethernet switch photo courtesy of Justin Smith on Wikimedia Commons.

Is DS-3 Bandwidth An Endangered Species?

DS-3 has long been the go-to telecom service for companies needing moderate amounts of bandwidth for dedicated Internet access, file transfers and video transport. It’s been steadily coming down in price as more providers compete in the network bandwidth space. But even if costs are a fraction of what they were a decade ago, DS-3 may be in its twilight years. What could be causing that?

The seeds of change were sown when data packets replaced digitized voice as the primary traffic on the world’s networks. Now video is arguably demanding the lion’s share of available bandwidth. What’s true for data and video, and increasingly voice, is that packet switched IP networks are the new bandwidth services of choice.

DS-3 connections offer a symmetrical bandwidth of 45 Mbps. Delivery is most often over a fiber optic cable, although there are short range fixed wireless solutions that are popular in densely populated business districts. The user handoff is via a pair of coaxial cables, one for transmit and the other for receive. This hints at the copper legacy of DS-3.

There’s a lot you can do with 45 Mbps, especially in medium size companies. It’s a big step up from the closest related technology of T1 lines that run at 1.5 Mbps each. These can be bonded together to give you 10 to 12 Mbps, but that’s about it. From there you move up to DS-3 at 45 Mbps. The next step is to OC-3 SONET fiber optic service running about 156 Mbps. As you can imagine, there are big pricing level jumps that accompany the bandwidth jumps in these legacy telecom services.

What can possibly threaten the dominance of an entrenched technology like DS-3? It’s the rise of Carrier Ethernet service in recent years. It’s actually been more like a tsunami lately. The popularity of 50 Mbps, 100 Mbps and higher Ethernet bandwidth has been surging for two important reasons. First is availability, second is price.

The term Carrier Ethernet is used to describe a range of services from local Metro Ethernet to long haul networks with national and international footprints. All of these services are extensions of the familiar switched Ethernet protocol that runs on nearly every business LAN. In fact the handoff is a simple Ethernet connector, such as the ubiquitous RJ-45.

Why Ethernet? It just makes sense to use the same technology that is running on the majority of networks today. Interfacing is easy. There are no protocol conversions involved. Network services such as level 2 LAN extensions are readily available. Both point to point and multipoint options are standardized service offerings.

Ethernet is more scalable and more quickly scaled than competing telecom services, like DS-3. You can get lower bandwidth Ethernet service in levels such as 2 Mbps, 3 Mbps, 5 Mbps, 10 Mbps, 15 Mbps and 20 Mbps delivered over twisted pair copper. These can replace higher priced fractional DS-3 services delivered over fiber.

Higher speed Carrier Ethernet services, including the popular 50 Mbps, 100 Mbps , 250 Mbps, 500 Mbps, 1,000 Mbps and 10 Gbps levels are delivered using fiber. The equipment tends to be more automated than legacy telco gear, allowing rapid changes to customer bandwidth without having to change equipment or wiring.

More than anything else, though, what’s endangering DS-3 bandwidth is the lower cost of Carrier Ethernet. How would you like to get 50 Mbps Ethernet at a lower cost than 45 Mbps DS3? Would you be impressed if you found out you could get 50 Mbps Ethernet for half the price of your old DS-3 connection? What if you could get 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet service for less than the cost of that DS-3 connection? How long would it take for you to make the switch for more bandwidth at lower prices?

The price you pay has a lot to do with availability of services for your particular business location. The only way to know for sure is to get the latest competitive quotes for both DS-3 and Ethernet. Then make your decision. You may be surprised by how much WAN bandwidth has changed recently.

Metropolitan Area Networks

We’re all familiar with LANs. Those are the local area networks used in nearly every business to interconnect computers, centralized storage, printers, wireless access points, WiFi hotspots, scanners and, increasingly, telephones and video equipment. When we want to connect to the outside world, we might think of a long haul or WAN connection to the Internet or distant business location. But there is another important type of network in-between the LAN and the WAN. That’s the MAN or Metropolitan Area Network.

The Metropolitan Area Network is an important service in its own right. For many companies, the only long-haul connections they may need are a dedicated broadband Internet and long distance telephone services. Most all of their traffic stays local. Not local as on the LAN, but geographically local. That means within the bounds of a city, suburbs and nearby locations.

This is where the term Metropolitan Area Network got its name. It’s a network that spans a given metropolitan area and not much further. You don’t find MAN services out in the countryside. Not that there aren’t important customers beyond the city limits, mind you. It’s just that MAN networks tend to be build upon fiber optic networks and very little fiber exits out in the boonies right now.

As you might suspect, the greatest concentration of MAN services will be found in business districts of major cities. That’s simply because the greatest population density and number of businesses are also found downtown and in the business districts of adjoining suburbs. Fiber optic cable construction and equipment are expensive. Service providers need lots of traffic from lots of customers to justify the expense of building out a MAN.

It’s possible to construct your own private MAN by ordering point to point lines between each of the locations you want to connect, or by establishing a star network with corporate headquarters at the center. Many companies buy MAN services instead because the costs are lower for a given bandwidth level. That makes sense, since the network infrastructure cost can be amortized over a large user base. A properly run MAN will give you the performance and security you require at a savings over creating your own private network.

How do service providers build a MAN? A classic approach is to construct a fiber optic SONET ring around the city, linking all the important office buildings, industrial parks, data centers and carrier hotels. SONET is the Synchronous Optical NETwork standard for legacy switched circuit telecom services. It features two lit fiber strands sending traffic in opposite directions for redundancy. If one fiber fails, the other picks up the load within 50 mSec.

Newer MAN services are build upon Carrier Ethernet or Metro Ethernet. The core network may still be running SONET or it may be an IP core network. Either way, the customer only sees an Ethernet interface. It may be an E-Line point to point connection or an E-LAN multipoint to multipoint connection. MPLS networks implemented as a MAN have the advantage of being able to handle nearly any type of traffic.

Downtown, you may also have the option of using a wireless MAN. These are based on fixed wireless transmissions between a carrier’s tower and radio equipment at each location served. These are short range services and require line of sight between buildings. If it happens to work out for you, wireless has the advantage of fast installation and low construction cost compared to bringing in fiber to locations not already lit.

Does your business need to communicate between two or more locations in town? If so, Metropolitan Area Networks are what you are looking for. Get prices and availability for now.



Note: Photo of New York City courtesy of I, Laslovarga on Wikimedia Commons.

WAN Network Design Options

It’s commonly assumed that the LAN (Local Area Network) and the WAN (Wide Area Network) are completely different animals. You need completely different network design philosophies for each... or do you?

The abyss between WAN and LAN became established by they way they came into being. LAN networks are owned by individuals, businesses and organizations and are based on packet switching. At one time, there were competing topographies such as ring, star and buss. Now it’s all Ethernet on the LAN, with some specialized networks used for such things as disk storage. Most networks are based on twisted pair copper, fiber optic cable, or some combination of the two.

WAN standards grew out of the telephone industry, which has a monopoly on twisted pair telco lines used for both voice and data. Until recently fiber optic networks were also primarily owned by or at least developed to telephone company SONET/SDH standards.

Clearly, there was a technological disconnect between packet switched LAN technology and circuit switched WAN technology. That’s not so much the case anymore, but it is true that you need to do a protocol conversion to connect point to point or to the Internet using telco services such as T1 lines, DS3 bandwidth or OC3 fiber optic connections. Both the circuitry and software needed for WAN network interface are off the shelf items. You simply by a T1 interface card for your router if you want to plug in a T1 line.

What this means is that you can generally mix and match WAN network technologies as long as you have the proper interfaces. T1 line prices have plunged in recent years, making them the entry level WAN option of choice. A T1 line can be used to provide a dedicated broadband connection to the Internet or a direct point to point connection between two business locations. Some companies build customized WAN networks by connecting each branch office back to headquarters using T1 lines to form a star network. The router at headquarters manages traffic between all locations.

What’s new in WAN networking is the rise of Carrier Ethernet and MPLS networks. These are very compatible technologies and can be used together or separately. Carrier Ethernet is a native packet switched technology that avoids LAN/WAN interface issues. You can replace point to point T1 lines with Ethernet line services. Ethernet can also be used to provide a last mile connection to the Internet. Unlike T1, there is an Ethernet LAN service that can be used to connect multiple locations together in a mesh network. Ethernet LAN is a direct replacement for private WAN networks based on T1 lines or higher bandwidth services.

MPLS networks provide a many to many WAN networking solution. MPLS is a protocol that can transport nearly any other protocol in a cloud network. You see T1 lines being used for network access. Ethernet service is also used for last mile network access to the same MPLS networks.

What Carrier Ethernet and MPLS networks offer compared to their telco WAN predecessors is a cost savings and the ability to get out from having to manage the WAN yourself. You can treat Ethernet LAN or MPLS network services as a true cloud that provides the bandwidth, latency and class of service controls you need for converged network operations. Competitive carriers own their core networks completely independent of the telephone companies. In major metropolitan areas, they also provide fiber optic access connections at considerable cost savings over legacy solutions.

What are the best WAN network design options for your company? Why not compare several competing architectures and see which offers the best cost savings for the performance required? Check WAN network solution prices and availability now.



Note: Photo of telecom equipment racks courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Metro E Prices Reduced

Metro Ethernet prices have been reduced for business users across the country. Just in time, too, as the economy is poised to start picking up steam in a big way. No need to settle for less bandwidth or lower quality digital services. Metro E is affordable and available the configuration you need.

If you are currently using a limited bandwidth service, you may well benefit from an upgrade to Metro Ethernet. What’s that going cost and what can you get? How about twice the bandwidth for the same money you are spending now?

I don’t blame you for raising an eyebrow. The entire bandwidth game has changed in the last few years. Just as T1 lines became the de-facto digital telecom service for small to medium businesses, Carrier Ethernet was standardized and deployed for metropolitan and long haul networks. Ethernet services are now spreading like wildfire in support of all size businesses.

In a sense, what we have is a changing of the guard. The digital telecom services we’re most familiar with, T1, DS3 and OC3, are actually telephone technologies that have been adapted to carry data packets rather than digitized phone calls. However, what’s deployed on just about every computer network is the Ethernet protocol. It only makes sense to extend that Ethernet protocol into the wide area networks as well.

This is what Metro E is all about. It’s Ethernet that connects your LAN at one location to your LAN at another location across town. If you like, you can set this up for strictly point to point service, called Ethernet Line, or as a multipoint service called Ethernet LAN.

Metro E networks are designed from the ground up for ease of bandwidth provisioning. With T1 lines, for instance, you generally have to settle for increments of 1.5 Mbps and wait for entire new lines to be installed to increase your bandwidth. With Ethernet, you order an Ethernet Port that is capable of a maximum speed. Then you are free to order the level of bandwidth you need for your current applications. If you need to increase your network capacity to meet an increased need, a simple phone call to your service provider is often all you need to have your Ethernet line speed turned up.

Metro Ethernet offers bandwidth options from 1 Mbps on up to 10 Gbps. Popular speeds are 3 Mbps, 10 Mbps, 50 Mbps, 100 Mbps, 1 Gbps and 10 Gbps. Of course, you can order speeds in-between these levels so you only need pay for what you need. The lower bandwidth options up to 45 Mbps are provisioned on twisted copper pair and called Ethernet over Copper or EoC. High speed Ethernet services are provisioned over fiber optic cable. These range from 45 Mbps on up to 10 Gbps.

Metro E is also popular as an access connection to larger networks. Ethernet dedicated Internet access provides rock-solid bandwidth to the public Internet. MPLS networks and Ethernet are highly compatible. Worldwide Ethernet service using Metro E connected to a large MPLS networks is now readily available.

Don’t forget the price savings. In most situations, your least cost per Mbps or Gbps will be an Ethernet service. Currently, 3 Mbps Ethernet is going for about the same price as 1.5 Mbps T1. Even larger savings are available as bandwidths increase. How much can you save? Find out by checking Metro E prices and availability now.



Note: Photo of city lights courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

What Leased Line Service Providers Offer

Most businesses get their telecommunication services from leased line service providers. That includes telephone, Internet, and point to point line services. You probably have some of these contracts yourself. But do you know about the cost reductions and all of the new services that have become available recently?

The nature of telecommunications services has changed dramatically in recent years. The two biggest changes are cost savings that come from a flurry of new competitive service providers and the introduction of new technologies that offer additional services.

You can still get most of the telecom services that were available a decade or so ago. The most popular line service is T-carrier, especially the T1 line. T1 is a telephone company technology and comes in several flavors. The original use was a digital trunk to carry multiple phone calls between telco switching centers or into a multi-line business phone system. An upgraded version of the T1 telephone line is called T1 PRI or ISDN PRI. It gives you up to 23 outside phone lines plus a data channel for dialing, switching and Caller ID. Nearly every PBX phone system and many key telephone systems can be easily configured to use T1 PRI.

Another use for T1 lines is to provide point to point connectivity between two business locations. A point to point T1 line offers 1.5 Mbps in both directions simultaneously. If you need more bandwidth than this, you can get bonded T1 service that combines multiple T1 lines up to about 10 or 12 Mbps total.

A related service is the T1 access line. This is a last mile connection to a larger network. At one time, the larger network was called Frame Relay. Nowadays, MPLS networks have taken over this role of connecting business locations on a regional, national or international basis. MPLS networks have the advantages of nearly unlimited bandwidth that can transport just about any voice, data or video protocol.

T1 Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) is the choice for broadband Internet access for many smaller businesses. The cost is only a fraction of what it was a decade ago. As a professional grade telecom service, you enjoy a reliability and constant bandwidth not typical of consumer oriented services like DSL and Cable.

The new competition to T1 lines is coming from Carrier Ethernet services, including Metro Ethernet. Like T1, Ethernet is a wireline service. Also like T1, it is delivered on multiple twisted pair copper wiring for lower bandwidth services. That copper wiring is generally already installed for multi-line telephone service. Ethernet offers the same point to point and Internet connections you may be using with T1 lines now. But Ethernet can also give you layer 2 switched network service between several or more locations around town or over a wider area, including overseas offices.

Ethernet is gradually taking over from T1 in metropolitan areas where it is most available. A popular service is 3 Mbps Ethernet for about the same price as a 1.5 Mbps T1 line. For more demanding uses, 10 Mbps Ethernet is becoming a popular standard.

Once you get into the higher bandwidths, 45 Mbps and above, fiber optic cabling takes the place of twisted pair copper. DS3 is the T-carrier upgrade to T1. It is now delivered over SONET fiber optic services at 45 Mbps. The Ethernet equivalent is 50 Mbps Ethernet service, although Fast Ethernet at 100 Mbps is an industry standard and the speed of many local networks. Like copper-based Ethernet services Ethernet over Fiber tends to offer much lower costs per Mbps than equivalent traditional SONET telecom services.

You should also know that both T1 and Ethernet services have an option to get both telephone and Internet over the same line. Integrated T1 is the legacy wireline service. SIP trunking is the IP service that gives you VoIP telephony and broadband Internet access.

Have you been wondering if you are paying too much for the wireline services you’ve just kept renewing over the years? Find out by getting up to date quotes for both Ethernet and T1 or SONET wireline services from dozens of competitive service providers. The range of services and their current costs may astound you.



Note: Photo of multipair cable courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Covad and ADTRAN Make Everything Ethernet

The age of Carrier Ethernet is upon us. All the excitement these days is directed at IP core networks and Ethernet access solutions. So, does that mean that legacy TDM services must be abandoned in place? Not at all. With the right equipment, DS1 and DS3 circuits can be repurposed for Ethernet transport. Carrier Covad and equipment maker ADTRAN are doing just that.

Covad is now deploying ADTRAN central office and network termination equipment to expand their Ethernet service area. Covad currently serves 44 states and 235 major markets with a core network that spans the nation. Their specialties have included business DSL, data T1, high bandwidth fixed wireless, bonded T1, and integrated voice and data with SIP, PRI and analog handoff. All of these are designed to serve the small and medium size business market. Ethernet is a natural addition to the Covad portfolio.

What’s special about the ADTRAN Carrier Ethernet solutions? It’s that they can pretty much press any existing line service into transporting Ethernet from the service provider to the end user. A service aggregation unit is installed at the central office to connect with the carrier’s Metro Ethernet and IP Core networks. For Covad, this is the Total Access 5000 MSAP (Multi-Service Access Platform). The aggregation unit brings in GigE or 10 GigE carrier bandwidth connections and apportions it to subscribers.

What makes this system so flexible is that the transport from CO to subscriber can be any of the common circuits already in place. These include DS3 and bonded DS3 bandwidth, T1 and bonded T1 lines, e.SHDSL bonded pairs. DS3 and T1 (DS1) are legacy service that are been used by many businesses for years. Ethernet over TDM or EoTDM allows service provider to keep those circuits in place and use them to provide Metro Ethernet or Carrier Ethernet services over an extensive area.

EoC or Ethernet over Copper has become very popular recently because it offers higher bandwidths and lower prices than traditional digital line services. The e.SHDSL technology can boost speed to 5.7 Mbps per e.SHDSL loop compared to 1.5 Mbps for T1. However, this is a distance limited technology that is typically extends no further than 9 km from the carrier’s point of presence.

An appropriate network termination unit is installed at the customer location. The companion product is the NetVanta 800 Series. These are configured for 2, 4, or 8 bonded e.SHDSL pairs, up to 3 bonded DS3 circuits for a maximum of 134 Mbps, or 2, 4 or 8 four-wire T1/E1 loops. In many cases, bonding multiple copper pair can bring in the bandwidth needed by businesses without the high cost of pulling-in fiber optic cable for a new installation. In many cases, fiber isn’t available nearby and isn’t really an option. Even so, 10 or 12 Mbps and up to 45 Mbps over existing copper wiring offers the requisite bandwidth at very reasonable costs.

Is your business straining at the limit of your current T1 line or dissatisfied with business DSL service? If so, you may find that Ethernet service from Covad and other top carriers is just what you need. Why not find out how much bandwidth you can get for your telecom dollar? It takes just a second to inquire and a knowledgeable consultant will be in contact quickly with prices and install times. Inquire about Carrier Ethernet for your business now.