To: JakeStraw who wrote (470 ) 6/8/2000 9:04:00 AM From: samoyed Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 609
Williams Communications Wins Top Award for Best Core Backbone Third Consecutive Year June 8, 2000 08:03 AM Eastern Time TULSA, Okla., June 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Williams Communications WCG , an international provider of telecommunications services and products for the carrier marketplace, has received a SUPERQuest Award for best built core network for the third consecutive year in recognition of its outstanding achievements in implementation of advanced telecommunications network technologies. The award was presented this week at SUPERCOMM, one of the world's largest communications conferences and exhibitions. The awards program, SUPERQuest, sponsored by SUPERCOMM and tele.com magazine, recognizes the implementation of public and private network solutions and key products and technologies that have advanced business for the customer. The program also recognizes the most promising new technologies represented on the SUPERCOMM show floor. This year, Williams Communications received the award for the best built core network, a trailblazing optical mesh architecture. In making their final decision, judges said, "Williams' focus on traffic engineering and quality-of-service capabilities, including a flawless architecture with intelligence strategically located throughout the network, which in turn enables an elegant and economical -- in the classic sense -- traffic engineering scheme." Williams was the first to use scalable optical switching technology to build an intelligently managed, multi-wavelength network with CIENA's CoreDirector(TM) platform. "Williams' unique optical network architecture allows us to offer a greater variety of services to our customers and deliver those services faster and at a lower cost," said Joe Turcotte, senior vice president and chief operations officer for the Williams network. In accepting the award on behalf of the company, Andy Wright, chief technologist-optical networking for the Williams network said, "By deploying CIENA's intelligent optical switch, Williams becomes the first network to use optical-layer signaling and routing protocols. This technology enables Williams to provide rapid service delivery and end-to-end capacity management and traffic engineering." Williams is in the process of deploying the first network that simultaneously supports both mesh and ring restoration capabilities in the optical domain, allowing a richer set of optical services classes than are possible with traditional technologies. This enables Williams to build a true optical network, rather than a collection of linear optical transmission facilities. Through the optical core switch, Williams' network physical architecture is simplified in three layers -- a service layer, an optical switching layer and a physical Dense Wave Division Multiplexing transmission layer. This simplification directly supports greater scalability, lowest cost-per-bit and fastest service delivery, all advantages that give Williams a competitive edge.