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Re: TransAtlantic Cable Break

  • From: Frank Coluccio
  • Date: Sat Jun 23 00:08:23 2007

Interestingly, some major transoceanic undertakings have begun looking very
favorably towards a meshed topology solution, eschewing rings. Verizon is
championing this approach at the present time as a consortium partner in the
Trans-Pacific Express (TPE) cable laying venture to China, and offers
justifications for doing so in several interviews and PPT prezos I've come
across. Makes sense. From: http://preview.tinyurl.com/yqcrzm

Article "Verizon Business plots business plan for â??07 and beyond"
May 2007 Issue of Lightwave Magazine

<snip>
"Last year, Verizon also took steps to improve the reliability of the
transatlantic portion of its global IP network. In the past, traffic moved across
the Atlantic over SONET rings, which provided redundant paths. However, such
architecture only protects against a single failure in a given ring. A failure or
service interruption on two or more segments of the same network required the
deployment of a cable ship-the nautical equivalent of the truck roll-to restore
service. Today, Verizon Business operates a mesh network, using Ciena
CoreDirectors (www.ciena.com), to move traffic between six diverse paths that can
be routed onto other undersea networks in the event of a network failure."
<snip>

Of course, these offerings are still being "productized," so it remains to be
seen what terms and conditions they carry, and how they will be priced. 

Frank
==

On Fri Jun 22 11:56 , Sean Donelan  sent:

>
>On Fri, 22 Jun 2007, Hank Nussbacher wrote:
>>> Tell that to the 10 gig wave customers who lost service. Very few cable
>>> systems provide protection at the 10 gig wave level.
>>
>> If you don't pay the extra amount for a protected circuit, why should your 
>> circuit get protection for free when others have to pay for it?  Now, if 
>> there are 10G customers with protected circuits who lost service, then 
>> hopefully they have in their contract hefty penalty clauses against the 
>> carrier.  If not, then they are just plain stupid.
>
>Is paying for "protected circuits" actually worth it.  Or are you better 
>off just buying two circuits and using both during normal conditions. 
>Use switching at layer 3 to the remaining circuit during abnormal 
>conditions.  Most of the time, you get twice the capacity for only twice
>the price instead of a "protected circuit" where you only get the once 
>the capacity for twice the price.
>
>Of course, there is still the problem some facility provider will "groom" 
>both your circuits on to the same cable.  If you are buying pre-emptable 
>circuits, hopefully you understand what that means.
>
>
>