NGN Ventures: Service Provider Perspectives

SBC will deploy a variety of access and metro optical technologies based on the business model for each service, existing network compatibility, and regulatory issues, said Ralph Ballart, Vice President of Broadband at SBC Technology Resources, speaking at the NGN Ventures Conference. On the access side, SBC has more than 2.2 million DSL subscribers, and the service is available to 28 million (more than 65%) of all SBC customers. Deployments of DSL technology will continue. SBC is also selectively using PON based fiber to the home (FTTH) to complement DSL as an access solution. Ballart said that a great economic advantage of PON is that the cost of fiber deployment is reduced because much of the path is shared by multiple customers. However, a decline in the electronics costs is needed for larger PON FTTH deployments. SBC feels than an even greater need is for a level regulatory playing field that addresses the differences between regulated phone companies and their unregulated cable competitors. SBC's review of the FCC's latest ruling will have large impact on its future FTTH rollout plans.


SBC is expanding its metro optical networks to offer new services. GigaMAN is a fiber based point to point GigE service. For the initial customers, this was set up with direct fiber connections. As the service as grown in popularity, SBC has moved to a Nortel CWDM access solution. Although Ballart now feels that Ethernet has become "carrier grade" and it has always offered outstanding price/performance characteristics, SBC will not necessarily use pure Ethernet equipment when offering its Ethernet Optical Network (EON) service. For example, if a customer is in a MTU that has a SONET connection with existing capacity (a common scenario according to Ballart), the best solution is to overlay an Ethernet signal on top of SONET. Ballart said that his system "wish list" for EON includes robust management and troubleshooting capabilities and full IETF HVPLS implementation. SBC will use Cisco's 7600 platform when it starts to deploy EON service in the second half of this year. SBC also offers Multiservice Optical Network (MON) service for SONET, GigE and Fibre Channel connectivity. As metro SONET networks become more congested, Ballart would like to move to a metro DWDM platform that offers reconfigurable wavelength add/drop, no wavelength "banding" and shared optical protection while offering SONET-like ease of engineering.


For Clayton Lockhart, VP for Strategic Network and Operations Architecture at AT&T, the key question is how to get the tools and technology needed to migrate from the old network to the new. He feels that today's network is made up of "frozen pipes" which can't easily provide for new usage patterns and promising potential growth areas, such as peer-to-peer computing, multi mode business users, teen users and digital media. The industry must re-think "The Network" and make it user-centered. Lockhart feels that customers should be able to use the network in a way that suits them through their own "dashboard" control system. He also believes that CPEs, connections and services must be easy enough to set up that residential and small business users can do so themselves.


On the system side, AT&T would like to see industry partnerships to address the challenges posed by networking equipment. The company is seeking "mating" and partnership proposals from vendors, start-ups, VCs and carriers. Lockhart said these could take many forms, such as the partnership of established vendors, a start-up and established company partnering, a group of start-ups joining forces, or an integration company pulling together the best in class capabilities of numerous vendors who use an open architecture. AT&T uses about 40 different boxes in the multi service access category, and it takes about three years from the time AT&T decides it wants to go in a certain technical or product direction until the time it is fully and reliably implemented. This needs to change.


Cogent Communications CEO Dave Schaeffer said that his company has an advantage over other carriers, because it targeted a very specific customer and created a network to meet its particular needs. Cogent offers a single product: Ethernet access to small and medium businesses over its own proprietary next generation network. Schaeffer said that AT&T offers over 8,000 products, which creates organizational and network complexity. Schaeffer advises service providers to productize their networks with simple choices that are easy to manage and sell. He also said that it is foolish for new service providers to target the voice market.


Cogent's network runs Cisco core optical systems to run IP directly over DWDM. The core connects to metro fiber networks that Cogent obtained the right to use through 20+ year IRU arrangements. The company then lays its own fiber to office buildings, where it installs layer 3 CPE equipment. Cogent always delivers Layer 3 service in a ring configuration. At the edge, the company uses just three architectures to connect its metro networks to office buildings: 1) CWDM directly into a layer 3 router, the most cost effective way to deliver 20 fast Ethernet connections; 2) active transponder connections for DWDM; 3) an active DWDM transponder and TDM switch fabric (Cerent 15454) for packet over SONET converted to Ethernet in the building, which is the most expensive but most flexible option. Cogent averages more than two customers for each of the 700 buildings on its network. The average building has been on its network for just seven months. To add an average retail building to the network costs $75,000 in capital expenditures: $35,000 for a fiber lateral to the building; $15,000 for in-building riser; $15,000 for in-building electronics; and $10,000 for the receiving electronics in a hub location.