LEVEL 3: LEADING THE WAY
Capacity Magazine, October 2006 Issue
Level 3 and WilTel were separately leading providers of dark fibre, wavelength and lit services to the US academic community even before Level 3 acquired WiTel a year ago. Together they have consolidated Level 3’s position as the primary provider of backbone connectivity for both of the US’s national research and education networks, Internet2 and National Lambdarail. Level 3 is in the process of deploying a 13,000 mile network for Internet2, which is expected to be fully built out on Level 3’s platforms by June 2007. This will also incorporated Abilene, the 10GB wavelength Internet2 currently runs over Qwest infrastructure which is experimenting with advanced IPv6 multicast protocols. Level 3’s deal with Internet2 comprises dark fibre, wavelengths – “the largest scale wavelength backbone anyone’s ever purchased from US, accordion to Level 3’s Dunbar – and IP and private line services. Level 3 said it was selected not just because of its network footprint, but also because it has completely rebuilt its DWDM, IP backbone and private line switching layers over the past two years. “As technology leader, Internet2 wanted its network deployed on the most up-to-date network platforms,” Dunbar says. Key to the deal, accordion to Internet2’s Cotter, was Level 3’s use of advanced Infinera optoelectronic chip technology which delivers 100GB capacity on a single chip. This enables Internet2 to have a much denser topology at lower cost: It will connect 60 sites directly to its backbone.
Level 3 and Internet2 are also pioneering a unique commercial model. Internet2 will have its own dedicated fibres and optical systems, yet these will be fully managed by Level 3 to the same SLAs as it offers commercial customers. “We felt we could benefit from a large carrier’s economies of scale in the management of our infrastructure,” Cotter says. However, this is only possible, he adds, because Level 3 already uses the Infenera technology Internet2 would have chosen to buy.
Level 3’s recent acquisitions of metro players, including Looking Glass, Progress and Telcove, have brought the carrier high speed metro onramps to the research community backbones, over which it can connect regional university networks in premier locations, such as California, New York and Pittsburgh. “Our combination of assets and the scalability of our network 0 able to offer 10x10Gb systems across the entire network – are winning US business in the research and education market,” Dunbar says. “We can cope with the bandwidth demand that was theoretical five years ago as it now exploded and becomes real.” |
