Level 3 Network Connections Into Mexico

If you do business in Mexico or are a multi-national company with a strong presence in Mexico, Level 3 Communications has good news for you. They’ve launched a major initiative to bring high bandwidth packet network services to business locations within Mexico.

Level 3 sees a business opportunity in Mexico that may be missed by carriers other than the incumbent, Telemex. it helps greatly that Level 3 recently acquired international bandwidth competitor Global Crossing, which already had significant network connectivity in Latin America. One of those assets is a 3,484 km fiber optic ring that connects Monterrey, Mexico City, Mazatlan and Guadalajara. From there it connects to the Pan-American Crossing submarine cable that runs from South America and Central America to the United States. There’s another connection at Tijuana, with a landing at Grover Beach near San Luis Obispo to connect to the California backbone and trans-Pacific submarine cables.

The Mexico ring is capable of providing Terabits per second of bandwidth capacity for transporting voice, data and multimedia services. Among the network services that Level 3 is now offering in Mexico are EtherSphere, Managed IP VPN, High Speed IP, Dedicated Internet Access, Wavelength Services and Private Line Service.

EtherSphere is a worldwide Ethernet-based WAN service, connecting Ethernet transport services from 150 locations that support 26 cities around the globe. EtherSphere offers Virtual Private LAN services (VPLS) specifically intended for companies with geographically dispersed business locations. VPLS is a mesh network technology running on the Level 3 MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching) core network. It’s also called Transparent LAN Service. The idea is to connect multiple Ethernet LANs together as if they are one bridged network serving all locations.

EtherSphere is a comprehensive VPLS service that supports six Classes of Services to prioritize traffic and enable network convergence on a large scale. You can easily scale bandwidth in various increments between 1 Mbps and 2 Gbps, although the system does support bandwidth above 2 Gbps. You have a choice of service types through the network that include multipoint to multipoint (mesh), point to multipoint (hub and spoke) and point to point connectivity similar to Ethernet private lines.

Level 3’s IP VPN service runs on their converged MPLS backbone rather than the public Internet. This gives you six-level Class of Service (CoS) for high performance voice and video transport as well as data connections. Level 3 owns more than 100,000 fiber miles connecting 450 markets in more than 45 countries. Your last mile connection can be anything from T1 through Gigabit Ethernet.

Level 3 is one of the world’s most connected Internet Service Providers. Their Dedicated Internet Access offers IP port speeds from DS-1 (1.5 Mbps) to 10 Gigabit Ethernet. High bandwidth users can opt for High Speed IP (HSIP), a dedicated wholesale high speed Internet service.

For the ultimate in high bandwidth service, Level 3 Wavelength service offers high performance, low latency fiber optic wavelength services over their high speed DWDM network. Available speeds are GigE, 2.5 Gbps, 10 Gbps, 10 GigE and 40 Gbps. You can order both protected and unprotected point to point configurations. Native Fiber Channel and FICON protocols are supported.

Level 3 Private Line services are available worldwide in over 45 countries. These connections are delivered over proven SONET and SDH architectures that are protocol independent. You can transport IP, voice, data and video as Layer 2 or Layer 3 traffic.

Do you have connectivity needs that include service to locations within Mexico or other international destinations from the United States? If so, get prices, features and availability for International fiber optic network services.



Note: Map of Mexico courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

You’ll Believe This MAN Can Fly

Metropolitan Area Networks are becoming more important in connecting business sites within the same city or city and suburbs. That’s especially important for franchise operations or businesses with many nearby branch offices, such as banks, insurance sales, gas stations and so on. What’s been limiting so far is the speed of the network connections available. Not any more. Metro networks are ready to fly.

The MAN or Metro Area Network is the networking solution between LANs or Local Area Networks and the much larger WAN or Wide Area Network. The MAN serves an important function in transporting voice, data and video traffic within a limited geographical area. Without the MAN, you are left to concocting your own solution by piecing together a collection of individual point to point telecom lines. Many companies have done this over the years with T1 lines and their own central router. But the MAN offers more bandwidth options and a significant cost savings.

Where does the cost savings come from? It’s a function of amortizing the cost of operating the network among the customers who subscribe to it. The MAN service provider installs a protected SONET fiber optic ring or IP core network and enough access points to reach business locations within the metropolitan area. Fiber optic networks are well suited to this application. They have nearly unlimited bandwidth when you install multiple core cables and use wavelength division multiplexing. An add-drop multiplexer a key points of presence makes it easy to get traffic on and off the network. All you need then is access connections from each location to the MAN.

SONET metropolitan area networks were the first to be installed using proven technology from the telephone industry and operated by the incumbent local telephone companies. OC3 connections at 155 Mbps have been popular with enterprise companies. Those needing higher bandwidth levels can upgrade to OC12 at 622 Mbps and even OC48 at 2.5 Gbps.

The Ethernet MAN is newer and offers some advantages over SONET based networks. First, Ethernet is scalable in small increments, so you can generally get whatever level of service you need from 10 Mbps standard Ethernet on the low end through 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet, 1000 Mbps Gigabit Ethernet and now even 10 GigE running at 10 Gigabits/second. Need more than that? Lease wavelength services or a dark fiber and install as much bandwidth as you require.

Ethernet services include Ethernet line service for point to point connections between two locations or Ethernet LAN service to interconnect as many locations as you require. These are level 2 switched services to that you can treat your entire operations in the metro area as a single bridged LAN.

Finally, Ethernet MAN services generally have a significant cost advantage over traditional telecom services. Bandwidth cost per Mbps is sometimes a fraction of what you would otherwise pay. This is due to a high degree of competition in metropolitan areas among independent carriers that have installed their own metropolitan and long haul fiber optic networks.

Do you have a need for MAN connections to support your business or organization? If so, check Metropolitan Area Network prices and availability now.