Minnesota carrier brings Carrier Ethernet service over fiber rings to smaller businesses

CEN Feature (May 25 2010)

1. 

   In recent years, we’ve begun to take it for granted that large office buildings in major metropolitan areas should have fiber that supports carrier-grade Ethernet connectivity directly into the building—often with multiple carriers from which to choose. But where smaller businesses are concerned, it’s a different story.

    

   To get high-speed connectivity, many smaller companies must rely on tail circuits, often available only from the incumbent carrier. The cost of that option often is out of reach of smaller companies, and a single fiber cut can put the company out of service.

    

   Velocity, a competitive carrier based in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, aims to change that. http://www.velocitytelephone.com/aboutus.html The company recently began providing more affordable high-speed connectivity and a higher level of resiliency for smaller businesses by extending its existing fiber rings to those businesses and using them to deliver scalable Ethernet services that offer reroute protection in the event of a fiber cut.

    

   According to Velocity President Jim Hickle, what’s made this approach possible where it wasn’t in the past is a decline in the price of dense wavelength division multiplexing technology. And if it takes two fiber cuts to take a customer out of service, that means the company can take its time responding to reports of a single fiber cut, which also helps minimize service costs, Hickle says. 

    

   Hickle estimates that smaller business customers can get 10 MB/s of symmetrical Internet and voice service and save as much as 30 percent compared to what they would have paid previously for slower service based on T-1 lines.

    

   The improved DWDM economics that Hickle has seen may not be available to every carrier. Velocity’s approach requires a certain concentration of smaller business customers to work. But if it works in the Twin Cities, there ought to be other markets where a similar approach could be viable.

   Bookmark or Share this article

Login to comment.