Bandwidth Bounty.
InternetWeek, Nov 29, 1999 p1
Author
Moozakis, Chuck
Most of the major long distance carriers are upgrading their fiber optic backbones to 10-Gbps OC-192 in an attempt to support e-commerce, broadcast-quality audio, collaborative engineering and other applications. Augmenting these high-speed backbones will be next-generation optical routers that promise more reliable service, faster provisioning and, ultimately, lower prices.
But this move to mega-bandwidth isn't a cure-all for network managers. They're concerned about the carriers' ability to ensure quality of service, especially since these networks will be based mostly on IP, which doesn't offer the same QoS features as ATM.
John Baines, director of IS for Trans World Radio, an international radio broadcaster served by MCI WorldCom, is upbeat about the move to OC-192, but he remains more focused on QoS issues.
"I want to send more of our broadcasting to our affiliates over the Internet, but I want those broadcasts to be FM quality," Baines said. "So I need more bandwidth. I just want to make sure the data is flowing the right way."
Driving the carrier upgrades isn't just enterprise demand, but also a "firestorm" of demand from other carriers-application service providers, competitive local exchange carriers and others, said TeleChoice analyst Cathy Gadecki. Among the planned upgrades:
- Qwest Communications will boost its just-completed 18,500-mile fiber backbone to OC-192, from OC-48 (2.5-Gbps), by mid-2000, the carrier said last week.
- Global Crossing expects to have the first segment of its North American OC-192 network-linking San Francisco, New York and Washington, D.C.-operational by the first quarter. The carrier just finished a trial in which customers' data was transported at OC-192 speeds between Chicago and Cleveland.
- AT&T is accelerating the planned upgrade of its OC-48 fiber backbone. The carrier earlier this month-six months ahead of schedule-activated an OC-192 span linking Cambridge, Mass., and New York after successfully testing Lucent Technologies terabit routers. Once further testing is completed early next year, AT&T will upgrade the rest of its network by 2001, using IP-over-Sonet, said Rose Klimovich, director of global Internet network services.
- MCI WorldCom is provisioning circuits on its OC-192-capable network to enterprise customers under a beta test of the network's full capacity, which has been throttled down to OC-48 because of limitations in nonoptical routers. As routers become available, MCI WorldCom will shift connections directly to IP over dense wave division multiplexing, said Jack Wimmer, vice president of engineering.
- Sprint, which is to be acquired by MCI WorldCom, has no immediate plans to move to OC-192 on its own, citing the high cost of network equipment. Meantime, "it's better to bundle four OC-48s," said Stephen Oliva, manager of transport planning. "Unless there's an application that requires OC-192, there's no reason to do so at this time."
Apps Drive Demand
Enterprise customers have already identified critical business applications that would benefit from more carrier capacity.
Rockwell Collins, an aviation electronics maker, wants to share mechanical design files with partners over the Internet, said Jack Harris, director of advanced manufacturing technologies.
The company is participating in a test with other high-tech manufacturers, application service provider Alibre Corp. and Qwest to determine if CAD/CAM files can be transported securely across the Internet. If the trial is successful, the company hopes to have designers at various firms collaborate on products in real time, reducing fabrication costs.
"The ability for carriers to move great amounts of data is huge for us. We have high expectations for how e-commerce will be conducted, both internally and externally," said Harris, who added that he'll demand QoS assurances from whichever carrier he selects.
"We obviously have to have the verification that our data is being moved and that the integrity of that data remains high."
Qwest plans to woo enterprises by rolling out next-generation services, including customized application hosting, data storage and recovery, and broadcast-quality audio and video, said Vab Goel, vice president of Qwest's newly formed emerging technologies division. "Our plan is to aggressively move into managed services, things like managed VPN, managed firewalls, managed hosting," he said.
Qwest's network upgrade could give IT managers one more credible alternative to AT&T, MCI WorldCom and, for the time being, Sprint. Among the Big Three, the carrier with the most unified network is Sprint, with its ION integrated services offering, said Yankee Group analyst Rob Rich. Once MCI WorldCom buys Sprint, Qwest will have the purest network, Rich said.
Qwest will rely on a new breed of optical routers to streamline provisioning and reduce operating costs. These routers (Qwest is evaluating products from Corvis Corp. and Qtera Corp.) promise to let carriers provision services in hours, instead of the weeks or months it can now take to activate customer requests.
The routers reduce the need for regeneration points-akin to electrical substations that pump electricity in an electrical power grid. The new Qwest network will require only two such points instead of the 30 now needed to boost optical signals as they traverse Qwest's current IP-over-Sonet infrastructure. With fewer regeneration points to administer, new services can be added much more quickly.
"Provisioning is important," said Ken Anderson, director of IS for a Midwestern auto leasing company. "Right now, it takes us anywhere from 45 to 90 days to get a circuit activated. If Qwest or some other carrier can get our service up and running within a few hours, that would be something completely opposite to what I'm now experiencing. I would definitely be attracted to it."
Provisioning will also be expedited by Qwest's new network architecture. The carrier will migrate away from Sonet rings to a mesh, IP-over-dense wave division multiplexing design. With DWDM, Qwest can assign enterprise customers individual wavelengths that will let them build private networks and-through a Web browser front-end-request bandwidth on demand to deploy additional services.
"Once we have enough bandwidth, we believe IP will be able to handle all sorts of traffic" and provide a high level of QoS, Goel said. "It's a myth that IP isn't stable. Routers are switching at a faster rate, and OC-192 will give us more QoS because there will be zero congestion in the network. Our goal is zero packet loss, and we will be able to add more capacity to the network when we need it."
Goel said a test bed to be built as part of the Qwest network will demonstrate reliability and interoperability of the optical routers and associated switches supporting OC-192 throughput.
Still, carriers acknowledge the challenge of overcoming QoS concerns.
"It will take some work to educate users that these designs will work," said Alan Hannan, senior director of IP architecture and engineering for Global Crossing. "But the bottom line is this: From an engineering perspective, this stuff works."
Copyright [copyright] 1999 CMP Media Inc. |
