Thursday, September 20, 2012

UNSi finishes expanding Midwestern Carrier Ethernet networks, looks to future


Now that it's finished upgrading its Dallas and Denver POPs into full border gateway interconnects (BGI) -not to mention adding a new POP BGI in St. Louis, MO- United Network Services, Inc. is looking to the future of Carrier Ethernet in the Midwestern United States.


UNSi has been expanding all summer. Back in June, in order to strengthen its position in the enterprise and carrier markets, UNSi acquired IPNetZone Communications. That acquisition gives UNSi a total of 18 POPs in the United States, along with more than 150 NNIs and partnerships with almost 2,000 network providers.


UNSi is optimistic about the markets for MPLS and Ethernet services. According to Allan Schwartz, UNSi senior vice president of strategic planning and business development, the company sensed significant opportunity in establishing connection locations throughout the Midwest.


Cell site backhaul has been determined to be a growth market for Carrier Ethernet. Customers have realized how flexible and affordable Ethernet services are, and they're  now demanding Ethernet services starting at 50 Mbps. Most operators are actively rolling out 4G/LTE as fast as they can to keep up with demand.


Mr. Schwartz explained that UNSI's network was built with Carrier Ethernet in mind. Instead of rebuilding TDM networks from scratch, UNSI chose to augment existing networks with next-generation Ethernet and VPLS capabilities.


James Karimi, SVP and CTO, cited future challenges that UNSi would encounter as its networks grew. One of them is simplifying the implementation of OAM (Operations, Administrations, and Maintenance.) The complicated process can be a bother for monitoring services that need to cross carrier networks. And when you're a company like UNSi, who has partnerships with thousands of network operators...

To that end, SVP Karimi was of the opinion that Carrier Ethernet equipment manufacturers should perform RFC 2544 testing all types of switches, be they core switches or premise switches.

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