NTT America Adds High-speed Ethernet Options Across its National U.S. POPs

Event Summary

July 15, 2010 – NTT America introduces three options for its VLink Ethernet Layer 2 VPN service, available in the U.S.: VLink Direct (point-to-point); VLink Plus (point-to-multipoint); and VLink Mesh (multipoint mesh). Customers can also receive dedicated Internet access (IPv4 or IPv4/IPv6 dual-stack) across their VLink port. NTT America offers VLink's dedicated bandwidth at speeds from 100 Mbps to 10 Gbps in 100-Mbps increments, and service includes a 100% availability SLA.

Quick Take

Analytical Summary

• Current Perspective: Moderate on NTT America's VLink Layer 2 Ethernet VPN services, because the services do not offer the access reach and in-network class of service (CoS) support of VPLS. NTT America's VLink services are specialized, high-bandwidth services that are better suited to displace optical transport and IP transit services. VLink provides very high-capacity point-to-point (E-Line), hub-and-spoke (E-Tree) and mesh (E-LAN) transport between the company's 12 U.S. POPs, and interest will remain limited to high-capacity wholesale and specific enterprise applications.

• Vendor Importance: Moderate to NTT America, because the provider launched VLink as a point-to-point wholesale offer in 2006, and now offers customers greater flexibility with its hub-and-spoke/mesh configurations, plus the option to add dedicated Internet access over the same port as VLink. Companies can use VLink to transport their traffic securely, keeping traffic logically separate from the carrier's IP-based services. NTT America's VLink services is also suitable for certain enterprise cloud applications such as managed storage.

• Market Impact: Low to competitors offering national and global VPLS Ethernet, because while NTT America's VLink service overlaps VPLS offers somewhat in terms of functionality, VLink does not have the bandwidth flexibility, detailed CoS or widespread national metro/access availability of its larger U.S.-based competitors' VPLS offers. VLink offers its customers large amounts of dedicated capacity, and therefore mainly threatens wholesalers' dedicated long-haul wavelength services, optical transport and IP transit services.

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Analytical Perspective

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