Carriers pitch a WAN nirvana

The public network is getting interesting again. In the early '90s, the buzz was about the Internet's rise and the advent of frame relay. Today, it's about PBT, T-MPLS and next-generation networks, such as Verizon's FiOS and BT's 21CN.

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Wade through all the acronyms, and it becomes clear that carriers and network equipment providers are focusing on injecting more intelligence into public networks. That is making them more reliable and responsive, as well as capable of handling a variety of business-critical applications. On tap are managed services for security, storage, collaboration, disaster recovery and other business essentials.

It comes down to this: "If carriers have a simpler, more flexible and more manageable network infrastructure, then enterprises get a better quality of service because it is deliverable," says Steve Taylor, president of Distributed Networking Associates. "And that goes all the way from the hardware, up through things you would never think of, like billing systems. The entire infrastructure of the carrier is being overhauled and simplified, and that bodes well for the enterprise."