BellSouth announces region-wide IP/MPLS backbone, deploys equipment from Cisco and Juniper
14 May 2003 Atlanta Lightwave -- BellSouth yesterday announced that it is the first Regional Bell Operating Company (RBOC) to utilize a region-wide, interLATA Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) backbone enabling the latest evolution of information services and products for its customers.
"With IP [Internet Protocol] traffic becoming more prominent on BellSouth's network, we are meeting customer needs by appropriately evolving our infrastructure," explains Bill Smith, BellSouth's chief product development and technology officer. "BellSouth is committed to giving customers broader capabilities than ever before, all from a secure and reliable network infrastructure that is scalable to meet the growing needs of the market."
MPLS technology enables traffic engineering and enhanced performance of IP transport, while simultaneously facilitating quality of service. This IP transport technology allows customers to communicate with enhanced voice, data, and video solutions over a common network platform. In order to help meet the growing desires of customers for convergence, BellSouth has deployed the BellSouth Regional IP Backbone (BRIB), the first of its kind, say company representatives. The next-generation network has points of presence (POPs) in all major geographic areas in the BellSouth territory, ensuring that customers have access to its advanced features in most areas throughout the region.
The BRIB utilizes RFC 2547-compliant MPLS-architecture and other MPLS mechanisms, which allow BellSouth greater control of end-to-end services, traffic redundancy, and immediate expansion capabilities. By utilizing the BRIB, BellSouth will expand/enhance its information service product offerings with Quality of Service (QoS) and enhanced Service Level Agreements (SLAs). The BRIB also allows BellSouth to offer end-to-end information services such as the recently announced BellSouth Managed Network Virtual Private Network (VPN) Service and upcoming voice-over-IP (VoIP) solutions.
Currently, BellSouth is routing all of its Dedicated Internet Access and DSL-based Internet services traffic over the new backbone.
Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks are providing solutions in the BellSouth IP network core and edge to enable next-generation information service offerings.
BellSouth's deployment of the Juniper Networks' routing platforms creates the BRIB core, providing a robust and scalable IP/MPLS foundation to support the reliable delivery of multiple services as the network evolves, say Juniper representatives. The Juniper T640 and M160 platforms manage the flow of customer IP traffic throughout BellSouth's region, with three central hubs located in Miami, Atlanta, and New Orleans. The Juniper Networks platforms also provide the predictable performance and feature-rich packet processing demanded for the delivery of differentiated IP services.
In addition, BellSouth has adopted the Cisco 10000 and 12000 Series IP/MPLS platforms to play a critical role in the definition and deployment of a wide-range of customer-centric services. Cisco's 10000 and 12000 Series IP/MPLS platforms aggregate customer traffic and help ensure each customer receives required service attributes such as QoS, security, accounting, routing policies, and VPN policy.
The MPLS infrastructure upgrades and the BRIB are significant milestones in the continuing evolution of BellSouth's network, says the company. Customers can leverage these solutions to better integrate their business for enhanced productivity and collaboration. Enhanced next-generation services will be integrated into the MPLS infrastructure to provide a common platform for enhanced performance.