[WiMAX is on the road map. FSO (Free Space Optical) will also be considered, I believe, because of its low cost, fast and easy-to-deploy.
PLB (Power Line Broadband) is still another alternative in addition to all the fiber available from the Broadwing's partners - OnFiber, AirSpring, ....
The monopoly of access by RBOCs is broken !!
]
ipmediamonitor.com
Broadwing Adds VoIP to Converged Network
Expands Offering for Carriers, Enterprises
by Jim Barthold
Thu, September 22. 2005
Broadwing Communications is using its “inside-outside” capabilities to deliver VoIP over its nationwide Converged Network infrastructure. The new service, announced at Fall VON, makes PSTNConnect SIP and Enterprise SIP, two Broadwing VoIP services, available to carriers and multi-site enterprises.
The inside part of Broadwing’s network refers to infrastructure and technology from Focal, a company Broadwing acquired in 1994 which brought 23 local VoIP sites as well as local connectivity to Broadwing’s nationwide IP backbone – the outside part of the equation. PSTNConnect SIP lets VoIP providers offer enhanced local service to their end users via a single IP connection to Broadwing’s national backbone. Enterprise SIP enables enterprises to create VoIP WANs over their existing data WANs and provide a single SIP interconnection between the company’s internal VoIP network and the PSTN.
Within the enterprise, the network connects directly with existing IP PBX equipment without the need for PSTN gateways at enterprise locations, effectively allowing enterprises to replace multiple local providers and voice access lines with a single local/national VoIP platform.
This “gives enterprises a lot of flexibility,” said Donovan Dillon, Broadwing’s marketing vice president, speaking at VON. “Certainly customers are looking for managed services” and Broadwing has a managed services offer that rides on top of this network as well. On the other hand, he said, the base offer gives enterprises the chance to purchase raw bandwidth and connectivity and manage their own local and wide area networks, as well as the services that run on them.
IP, Donovan said, is “changing the nature of what managed services are.”
While Broadwing expects most carriers and enterprises to colnnect to the network via dedicated fiber, it is not wedded to that transport mechanism, Donovan said.
“We anticipate wireless and other types of access” running off the local connections, he said, because it is “really a trivial issue to integrate wireless into the platform.”
A WiMAX-type fixed broadband wireless connection interfaced at the edge of the Broadwing network is “clearly on the road map,” he suggested.
Wireless, he pointed out, is only a transport mechanism. The converged network allows carriers and enterprises to build application WANs using Ethernet, frame relay, ATM, private line and DSL to facilitate what Donovan predicted would be “a pretty significant shift … towards MPLS WANs.” |
