Verizon Business Launches 40 Gbps Service from Washington, D.C. to New York

On March 27th Verizon Business announced that it had increased capacity from 10 Gbps to 40 Gbps along the Washington, DC to New York City corridor; the service will be available in Q2 2007. Verizon Business plans to add 40 Gbps services to other key routes throughout 2007, and expects to begin trialing 100 Gbps transmission in 2009.

Recommended Competitive Responses

► In mid-2006, AT&T announced plans to upgrade key routes between 31 cities across its U.S. backbone to OC-768 speeds in early 2007. AT&T should try and steal Verizon's thunder by announcing its new 40 Gbps as complete, preferably soon enough that Verizon Business will have only a few routes of its network upgraded to 40 Gbps.

► XO recently completed an upgrade of its nationwide network using Infinera’s Digital Optical Networking equipment. Infinera began trials of 40 to 100 Gbps service with Internet2 in June; XO can imply that it is positioned to add additional capacity through its Infinera infrastructure when the time is right.

► Level 3 and other carriers that also have deployed Infinera gear can focus on the lower costs of an equipment platform that uses photonic integrated circuits, translating into lower costs for customers. They can compare the cost of four 10 Gbps wavelengths against those of the new and expensive 40 Gbps technology, and make the case that 10 Gbps wavelengths continue to be cost-competitive.

Recommended End User/Customer Responses

► Customers that have large bandwidth requirements along a New York and Washington, DC route will probably not see material changes to Verizon Business service details for now. While Verizon Business' first 40 Gbps link has gone commercial, the carrier is using the technology internally and will not be selling 40 Gbps wavelengths to anyone just yet.

PAETEC Chooses Visual UpTime Select to Power Its Three Tiers of Monitoring Services

On March 28th PAETEC released Network Performance Reporting (NPR), an IP network monitoring service powered by Fluke Networks' Visual UpTime Select platform.

Recommended Competitive Responses

► Most carriers, if challenged in a bidding situation by PAETEC's NPR offer, can simply state that they have supported the Visual Networks UpTime platform for years, and have years of experience relative to the recent entry of PAETEC into this space.

► Tier 1 carriers can criticize PAETEC's lease-to-own approach, describing it as a way for the CLEC to push ownership and responsibility for the gear onto the customer because it does not have the resources to manage and support these services on the ground nationwide.

► Larger carriers should tout the functions of their advanced, increasingly integrated customer portals, where each carrier has its own major monitoring and management strengths. Some examples: AT&T's across-the-board comprehensive business services coverage of BusinessDirect; Verizon Business' Customer Center premises-side monitoring and management options; and Sprint's NetView Performance Manager, which can provide performance information pulled from customer routers even for unmanaged services.

Recommended End User/Customer Responses

► PAETEC's NPR services provide pretty much the sort of detailed performance monitoring that has been Visual Networks' UpTime platform specialty for years. PAETEC is using the latest Fluke Networks' Visual UpTime Select gear, which includes some new functionality such as VoIP-specific applications performance metrics, for example. Global Crossing is one of few major carriers that have officially announced support for this platform to date.

► Most carriers provide some sort of metrics feedback via online customer portals these days, usually collected by polling information from routers in the network and/or at the customer point of demarc for a managed service. Though the data may not be as comprehensive as what the Fluke Networks Visual UpTime platform can provide, it is likely to be “good enough” for most common network uses.

Ethernet Services Product Assessments While all customer-facing Ethernet ports may look alike, the underlying approaches used to transport Ethernet traffic across carrier networks varies greatly, which is reflected in factors such as service price, available bandwidth, network performance, class of service, and service level guarantees. Current Analysis Ethernet Services Product Assessments detail and compare the offerings of the leading carriers. More Information >>

AT&T Adds IP Toll Free Service for Call Center VoIP Connectivity

On April 3rd AT&T introduced IP Toll-Free service, allowing customers to combine VoIP with call centers, teleconferencing, voice messaging and other toll-free applications.

Recommended Competitive Responses

► Large carriers that already offer IP Toll Free service, including Verizon Business, Qwest, Global Crossing and Level 3 Communications, should stress their lead time relative to AT&T's IP Toll Free service.

► Verizon Business, Qwest, Global Crossing and Level 3 all launched their IP Toll Free and any related IP-based ECR services on the same technology platform (an Avaya, formerly Ubiquity Software, product). These competitors can suggest AT&T is taking a different technology direction to its own detriment: While they all develop services on the de facto industry standard platform, AT&T is moving in a different direction.

Recommended End User/Customer Responses

► Most large call center customers are moving cautiously toward VoIP, and AT&T's release of IP Toll Free service should not change their strategy of minimizing risk. If AT&T's IP Toll Free service does not have corresponding SIP-based ECR support, it is also still probably too early to move to VoIP on a large scale basis. Large call centers can simply wait it out until as the technologies continue to mature.

► Large call center customers may be able to use AT&T's IP Toll Free launch, which was some months behind similar products by other carriers, to try to force down AT&T's contract costs. They can be vocal about their concerns on whether AT&T is keeping up with technologies they may need in the foreseeable future.

► Enterprises that need IP Toll Free functionality, but are not an inbound call center operation, may also be a good fit for AT&T's IP Toll Free service. Companies exploring this service, and shopping it against similar services offered by AT&T competitors, should get a clear idea of the road maps and timelines for new ECR features of respective carriers, as they are likely to roll out briskly throughout the lifetime of a multi-year business contract.