Meet Me in Atlanta

Originally published in FAT PIPE Magazine, April 2005

Editor's note: Throughout 2004, we used this space to identify the key physical layer carrier interconnection points within the major North American markets. This year the series moves forward to identifying the key service providers with wholesale enterprise-focused offerings within those markets.

Clearly, the key services in the greatest demand by enterprise users today are Ethernet transport and VoIP (voice over Internet protocol). And since most enterprises deploying VoIP only want to do so over a private native layer 2 network, it's enterprise VoIP demand that's driving Ethernet transport demand. So each month the series will focus on the previously featured carrier hotels and their carrier customer bases. The primary objective is to identify which carriers are offering Ethernet transport for enterprise wide area networks and which VoIP carriers enterprise networks can directly connect to at each carrier hotel in order to maximize savings.

56 Marietta St. holds a special place in the major fiber routes of the Southeast – right in the middle of it all. As we have learned from the original Meet Me series, where the fiber is determines where the carriers go to get connected. This creates the natural benefits of proximity reducing time and costs to deliver services, and a marketplace is born.

There is a tremendous amount of network development going on in and around Atlanta. Everything from major research and education networks in the city and suburbs to WiMAX (pre-standard) deployments in the rural areas. All of this activity is an effort to improve the underlying layer 2 capabilities so that developing packet-based applications can be supported properly. The existence of these networks actually helps to drive the creation of packet-based applications – for what good is the application if people can't use it?

Being an inland city, Atlanta doesn't have the proximity to undersea cables that would make it an obvious international gateway. But, after taking a closer look, it is evident that service providers offering Ethernet transport riding all of those major fiber routes give the city and this location more global access. Global Crossing, Teleglobe and TeliaSonera are located at 56 Marietta and provide international Ethernet transport from the site. These providers make it very easy for any type of VoIP user to build private layer 2 networks to carry voice traffic efficiently and securely, bypassing the public switched telephone network across the pond and beyond.

If those international providers can't get you where you need to go, there are always options. There are several domestic Ethernet transport providers available with routes to the Atlantic and Pacific gateways, where Ethernet cross connects to major undersea providers are happening every day. Those domestic providers also connect to other major United States cities to support any wide area network and/or VoIP peering needs. In addition to the international and domestic providers, there are many local Ethernet transport providers to support the last mile origination and termination efforts of VoIP traffic directly to the demarcation point, be it a softswitch, cell tower or IP private branch exchange.

One very interesting transport solution located within 56 Marietta is the Southern Light Rail (SLR), the local transport arm of the National Lambda Rail (NLR), which is a nationwide 10G research network. SLR provides shared and/or dedicated transport to NLR at very aggressive rates with a condition that the buyer's application has some direct ties to a research or educational project. Currently there are several projects underway, and many involve VoIP and video over IP. Access to the SLR and NLR presents new and uncommon opportunities for possible carrier and enterprise trials of IP services, and as of July 2005 they will be Ethernet enabled.

The VoIP service offerings at this site include domestic and international providers as well. It is evident that some providers still are in the midst of a front-end upgrade, as they have IP-enabled their voice core but have not yet added that functionality at the interface level. This is an interesting trend to watch develop, as it's a clear indicator of the adoption of VoIP and necessity of local Ethernet connections migrating away from the more costly time division multiplexed switch ports and SONET transport devices.

IP-based local phone service offerings also are available at this site. In addition to the service providers with direct access, 56 Marietta also is a Voice Peering Fabric-enabled facility. Due to its distributed Ethernet nature, all of the service providers on the VPF are accessible from any of its locations. This means that any of the competitive local exchange carriers, multiple system operators and voice over broadband service providers on the Fabric can offer their local phone service to anyone in this site, even though they are not physically there. The VPF adds a whole new dimension to VoIP service offerings and creates domestic and international buy-and-sell opportunities for the local Atlanta market.

The combination of Ethernet and VoIP is making great strides in localizing voice traffic and creating a secure, economical environment for calls to occur. As the series continues, we're sure to see many new names as well as several new offerings from traditional telcos trying to keep up and get ahead in the changing landscape.

Ethernet Service Providers

VoIP Service Providers

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