Exclusive: Verizon Business maps 2007 network plans

Verizon Business this week offered an update on its network technology projects as well as a glimpse into potential new offerings.

On the update side, the carrier is still waiting for a router or two that can consolidate its five separate IP networks into the same box with virtual segmentation and 100% availability. Ever since it was MCI, Verizon Business has been waiting for this capability – at least since 2004, the same year Cisco unveiled the CRS-1 core router (which MCI endorsed at the product’s launch) and its virtual routing/high-availability features.

But the Verizon Business IP backbone is Juniper-based. Juniper, Cisco and perhaps others are almost there, says Fred Briggs, executive vice president of network operations and technology at Verizon Business.

“I think we’re getting very close," he says. “We will trial that next generation of router in the fourth quarter of this year. In terms of availability, that’s the best we can do, and then deploy in 2008.

“We have been pressing for this for a long time, we have been very firm on the capability – it’s just not quite there,” he says. “Until we get that I don’t want to deploy – I don’t want to go through the convergence twice.”

In access, the carrier says it will offer flow-through service provisioning on 25% of orders by the end of this year. Flow-through provisioning allows customers to turn up new circuits or increase bandwidth in real time vs. waiting two to three weeks.

Flow-through provisioning is based on Verizon Business’ Converged Packet Architecture, which includes Tellabs’ 8800 service-edge router switch, Anda Networks’ EtherTone products and a hybrid Ethernet/TDM cross-connect from an unknown vendor. That unknown vendor is believed to be either Cisco with its ONS 15454 or Ciena with its CN 4200.

Briggs says Verizon Business will be offering “various Ethernet products” in 60-plus U.S. markets and at least 25 countries this year. Pseudowire capabilities, including service – which emulates frame, ATM and private lines over Ethernet – is on target for midyear, he says.

Next month, meanwhile, Verizon Business will start the conversion of its first 40G bit/sec route between New York and Washington, D.C. Verizon Business has had trials for 40G on several routes for the past few years and had said it planned to turn up three such routes by the end of 2006.

The upgrade was tested in 2005 on a route between San Francisco and San Jose in which 10Gbps and 40Gbps wavelengths were supported on the same fiber carrying high-definition television videoconferences, gaming, music downloads, VoIP and hundreds of video streams. But the carrier’s ultimate goal will be to get to 100G bit/sec.

“We will get to 100G as early as 2008 or certainly 2009,” Briggs says. “40G will be just an intermediate step.”

The 40G route will support 80 wavelengths. Briggs backed off earlier claims that 100G also would support 80 wavelengths, and he also was less bullish on ultimately boosting backbone bandwidth to 160G bit/sec, which was on the carrier’s roadmap last year.