TelePacific has tapped Ciena’s 8700 Packetwave Platform to support 100 Gigabit Ethernet services, marking another step in its nationwide network expansion effort.
As part of this network upgrade, TelePacific will be able to extend its growing suite of unified communications, managed IT, connectivity, cloud and continuity services to any customer regardless of their location.
The naming of Ciena as TelePacific’s underlying optical network platform provider comes on the heels of the debut of its SD-WAN capabilities that allows business customers to access its services via any broadband connection.
By implementing Ciena’s 8700 Carrier Ethernet 2.0 certified platform, TelePacific can provide business customers a host of packet-based services. Additionally, the platform will allow TelePacific to offer a variety of optical wavelengths, up to 100G, which can be activated to respond to customer demand.
Initially a regional provider to California and Texas-based businesses, TelePacific immediately gained a national footprint when it purchased DSCI in March. In addition, the DSCI deal gave TelePacific a broader set of managed service capabilities.
Earlier, the service provider expanded its Ethernet over 3rd Party Vendor (Eo3PV) agreement with AT&T that allows it to reach customers outside of its traditional territory.
TelePacific did not go it alone in deploying the 8700 platform across its network footprint. LightRiver Technologies, an integrator of transport networks and a Ciena Diamond-level BizConnect partner, provided network design and turnkey implementation, project management and technical support.
Being an active participant in driving Ethernet standards, TelePacific is using the 8700 platform to conduct standards testing at the University of New Hampshire’s Interoperability Lab (IOL). This work supports the advancement of industry standards with the Metro Ethernet Forum by facilitating the creation of interoperable services between operators across the industry.
Specifically, TelePacific joined CenturyLink and Frontier and TelePacific in 2015 to participate in the Metro Ethernet Forum's (MEF) Ethernet Interconnect Points (EIP) project, an effort to create standard guidelines for Ethernet interconnection.
These carriers will work alongside AT&T, Verizon and Windstream, which have already been testing prototypes at UNH’s IOL. The MEF said that this participation shows the need to create a common Ethernet connectivity fabric that is able to transport customers' traffic seamlessly across multiple carrier networks.
- see the release
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