UUnet's backbone, Part II
The company continues to move
toward dominance of the Internet
market. UUNET announced a $300
million upgrade on February 19,
1997 that will more than quadruple
the available capacity across its
national network in terms of both
backbone bandwidth and dial
capacity. With traffic over the
backbone nearly doubling every
quarter and demand for dial access growing at more than 10 percent every week, it initiated the
most ambitious network expansion in its 10-year history. UUNET began upgrading its
backbone in segments to support the highest speed available today for Internet Protocol (IP)
transmission: OC-12 (622 Mbps). The upgrade involves shifting of the backbone links to the
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) protocol. ATM is the only proven technology currently
available that supports IP transmission at OC-12 speeds. The company is installing ASX-200
and ASX-1000 ForeRunner ATM switches from FORE Systems. To increase the number of
dial access ports, the most common means of accessing the Internet, the company has begun
installing high-density MAX TNT remote access concentrators from Ascend Communications.
The MAX TNT concentrators, which support both analog and digital dial-up traffic, are being
deployed throughout the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico.
CURRENT BACKBONE ARCHITECTURE
UUNET's backbone network
consists exclusively of
redundant, fully-meshed DS-3
(45 Mbps) connections. Using
Cascade 9000 intelligent routing
switches and Cisco
7000/7500-series routers,
UUNET's backbone forms a
global lattice of interconnected
links, which the company says is
designed to eliminate any single
point of failure. All UUNET
switching nodes are physically
secure and protected by
uninterruptible power supplies,
using batteries and diesel
generators. In late March the
company said it installed
Larscom's Orion 4000 broadband
access multiplexers and Access
T45 T-3 DSUs to support high speed customer access and international backbone links. In
1997, further network expansion using ATM and OC-12 technologies is planned.
128 Kbps ISDN DIAL-UP LAN CONNECTION
Product: Internet 9-5 BASICSM Service-ISDN
Availability: See POP list
Average Installation Time: 4 days to two weeks, depending on telco ISDN availability
Setup: $395
Monthly: $395
Hours included per month: Unlimited
Recommended Equipment: Ascend PL50 router - $1,050 |
