The Big Apps: Tex Mex – The "Meet Me" Series Rides into 2323 Bryan St. (Dallas)

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by Hunter Newby

It's been said that everything grows big in Texas. That holds true in this installment of our series on Ethernet and VoIP service providers residing in North America's major carrier hotels.

Located in the city of Dallas, 2323 Bryan Street serves up a big, Texas-style list of providers in each category. The names of the providers on the list also are quite impressive, ranging from smaller, local players to some of the biggest names in the business. But large or small, local or global, it's pretty clear that in the past year many service providers across the continent have come to the reality of the packet-based future and made appropriate service offering modifications to compete. Those that have not aren't on the list. That might just mean that by next year it's too late to get on it.

The big deals and major shake-up surrounding voice on the public Internet service offerings have been playing out in the press recently. From GoogleTalk and Microsoft-Teleo to eBay-Skype, it seems that all of the big name Internet companies have been making substantial moves into the VoIP space. That's good for end users and also indirectly for the enterprise network operators out there that were wondering if VoIP was going to make it into the big time.

Looks like we can put those doubts to rest now, but these announcements might leave them thinking: "Are these VoIP applications on the public Internet enterprise-class solutions?" Good question. That's where 2323 Bryan St. and the other major network interconnection points in North America come into play.

Extreme Measures - Quantifying Markets & Demand

Why have so many Ethernet transport and VoIP service providers sprung up in carrier hotels during the past year? Is this to address the growing market for VoIP on the public Internet? If logic and rational thinking are put to work, the reason becomes clear, and the truth makes sense.

These types of service providers have been building up their networks and offerings at the carrier hotels to mainly address the enterprise market in the particular region, whether directly or through value added resellers. If this were a pure Internet-VoIP play, the carriers simply would have gone to the already-established public Internet peering points.

This, however, was not the case, as the Internet peering points do not have direct access to the legacy TDM (time division multiplex) voice carriers that can provide local dial tone and phone number blocks for the various area codes. These number blocks and the ability to port numbers from one carrier to another are the foundation of an enterprise VoIP offering.

There is some degree of carrier resale in these offerings that comes in the form of enhanced service providers. They buffer the enterprise from having to deal directly with the carrier. This particularly relates to the larger, nationwide competitive local exchange carriers, such as XO, which hold number blocks in most of the major LATAs (local access and transport areas).

Note: Contact information is from the original October 2005 publication.

XO, for example, now has IP enabled their inbound and outbound local switches and can provide local access via an Ethernet connection using private IP and SIP (session initiation protocol). This is a big step and also very popular with the calling card and voice over broadband providers, which are more end-user focused. It prevents them needing to have circuits or physical equipment in every city they want to serve locally. Now, these types of providers only need to be in one or two major interconnection points, such as 2323 Bryan St., and they can get full coverage.

"What many enhanced service providers may not be aware of is that through our colo at 2323 Bryan St. they can get cost-effective access to local inbound and outbound calling capabilities in all 70 plus markets where XO has a presence. Essentially, they get a virtual presence in each of our markets to make and receive local calls," states John Nishimoto, director of carrier product management for XO. "Through an Ethernet connection at 2323 Bryan St. we can terminate their VoIP calls into any of our 70 plus markets. We can also provide inbound calling and outbound calling nationwide through a PRI in 2323 Bryan St."

This type of network modification, in many cases, can help keep the legacy circuit switches in place for some time but simultaneously allow these carriers to provide voice provisioned as IP. Clearly not voice on the Internet but rather an IP interface to the public switched telephone network.

As it relates to Ethernet, carriers are just starting to catch up to where enterprises have already been for 15 years. Ethernet has been present in the local area network for quite some time, and the IT and MIS directors of every company in North America are very familiar with the technology and its capabilities. Carriers that are bringing Ethernet to the metro and long haul are being met by buyers that need no education on how to use the service. Adding VoIP as an application on top of the Ethernet transport is not a big stretch.

Note: Contact information is from the original October 2005 publication.

"We continue to see the upward trend of enterprises adopting Ethernet, VoIP and private network services," says Chris Crosby, vice president of Digital Realty Trust, owners of 2323 Bryan St. "Consequently, we have experienced significant absorption in our meet me room and turnkey datacenter facilities, due to the high concentration of quality service providers at 2323 Bryan St."

The trend is just in its early stages, yet its impact can already be felt. Everything that's happening out there right now with Ethernet and VoIP is so big that it's almost as if it's all coming out of Texas.

For more information on 2323 Bryan St., contact Jerry Faught at [email protected].

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Hunter Newby was chief strategy officer of telx at the time of this publishing.

Originally published in FATPIPE magazine, October 2005.

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