VZ:Verizon Business Enhances Trans-Atlantic Network

Verizon Business, one of the largest providers of IP global communications services, has deployed a technologically advanced network configuration on the trans-Atlantic portion of its global IP network to provide more diverse routes to benefit large- business and government customers.

This new configuration, called a mesh design, provides six diverse paths for rerouting traffic, if needed, on three major submarine cable network systems. The six-way mesh network design provides unsurpassed reliability for customer voice and data traffic traversing the Atlantic Ocean.

Previously, trans-Atlantic submarine networks used ring configurations to provide redundant paths. However, that architecture provides protection against only a single failure within any network ring. In the event of a service interruption on two or more segments of the same network system, no physical cable restoration is available until a cable ship is deployed to make repairs.

"Although mesh designs have been used in the past on terrestrial networks, we believe this is the most advanced design used for an undersea cable network system," said Ihab Tarazi, vice president of Verizon Business' global network planning. "As a result, we are able to provide our large-business and government customers with unsurpassed reliability for their mission-critical voice and data traffic.

"This advanced design allows our customers to have their traffic travel over pre-determined 'home' paths and special protection circuits," Tarazi said.

Each customer circuit is assigned a specific end-to-end path. If there is a service interruption, transport equipment switches to protection circuits that are either pre-assigned or determined by the system. Traffic is rerouted to the next best available path or paths.

Verizon Business has added multiple 10 gigabit paths to establish more trans-Atlantic diversity and has deployed Ciena CoreDirector(r) multiservice optical switching platforms at locations in both the United States and Europe. Networked CoreDirectors continually evaluate the health of the network and maximize its resiliency.

Verizon Business provides its customers with unparalleled trans-Atlantic service reliability based on a unique combination of customer-defined routing and protection paths over specific undersea cables with automatic mesh restoration and real-time service management using Ciena's ON-Center(r) Service Layer Manager.

In addition, for STM-1 (155 megabits per second) circuits and above, Verizon offers options to customers for various levels of protection. For example, the customer can specify the home route as well as up to three prioritized protection paths while excluding specific protection paths. If the customer specifies both a home route and a dedicated protection route, restoration should occur within 50 milliseconds (ms).

Due to the success of this new meshed network design configuration, Verizon Business will expand this project to the terrestrial global IP network in both the United States and Europe in 2007.