LDCOM chooses Cisco Metro Ethernet Switching across France
1 November 2002 -- Paris-based LDCOM Networks has selected Cisco Metro Ethernet Switching to deliver Ethernet-based connectivity services to both businesses and service providers across France. This includes the 7600 Series router for metro Ethernet connectivity in the aggregation layer, along with Catalyst 3550 switches at customer premises.
The LDCOM group aims to provide an alternative to France Telecom and currently services 50,000 enterprise clients, 820,000 residential customers, 2,000 hosting clients and 200 professional telecoms clients.
The company already provides Ethernet VPN connectivity across its fibre network to service providers and is now extending the offer to businesses in 30 metropolitan areas in France. LDCOM has built a 11,000km of national fibre backbone in France using rights of way beside waterways, through pipelines, transport infrastructure, and has worked closely with local and regional authorities in France to extend its fibre coverage in metropolitan areas.
"We were the first operator in France to offer Ethernet VPN services more than a year ago and are now extending our coverage to target enterprises as well as operators," said Michel Paulin, executive senior VP. "Many customers want us to connect several sites together with high-bandwidth connectivity, for which our Gigabit Ethernet and VPN solution provides a flexible offer.
"We can use software to increase or decrease the bandwidth provided to customers in a granular way from 1Mbit/s up to Gigabit speeds. The software-based approach to altering the amount of bandwidth provisioned to customers is much more flexible than the forklift network upgrades associated with traditional SDH networks, and is key to helping us to reduce the on-going operational cost of our network," he adds.
In addition to inter-site Ethernet VPN connectivity, LDCOM offers MPLS-based IP-VPN services across its network. With the new metro network, LDCOM is offering Ethernet last mile connectivity to businesses directly on fibre, coupled with Ethernet and MPLS VPN in the core network backbone.
"LDCOM's service offer is reflecting the growing interest shown by businesses in France to be able to scale the capacity of their inter-site connectivity beyond the current limits of SDH, and lay a foundation for rolling out voice over IP," says Michael Bayer, director service provider marketing, EMEA for Cisco Systems. "Given the choice, enterprises want to be able to buy the amount of bandwidth they need, not be constrained by the bandwidth packages on offer. Delivering Ethernet to the Business over fibre is an attractive solution."