NGN 99 KEYNOTE: LEVEL 3, BRINGING SILICON ECONOMICS TO NETWORKING
Level 3 Communications is betting its business on the premise that bandwidth is strongly price elastic.  Speaking at NGN 99, James Crowe, Level 3 President and CEO, said the tremendous bandwidth capacity of new fiber networks will stimulate the same hyper-elastic cost-demand phenomenon seen in the microprocessing field.  The cheaper it becomes, the more you use.  Crowe said Level 3 Communications will be built with a fully upgradeable design.  Because new generations of networking equipment are up to 8 times more cost efficient to operate than preceding infrastructures, Level 3 anticipates a continuous cycle of rebuilding, including switches and routers, the optics of its transport network and even the fiber in its trans-continental conduits.  Unlike other mega-carriers, Level 3 will pursue a horizontal business model, focusing on switching/transport service, not content aggregation.  Crowe believes in technologies that demonstrate the best price/performance improvement ratios, namely, IP as the convergence layer and DWDM as the transport.  Voice revenues dominate in the short term, so Level 3 will implement Lucent’s IP softswitch architecture along with VoIP gateways.  The PSTN will provide overflow capacity.  Looking ahead, Crowe envisions virtual “tele-presence” conferencing approximating the information gathering potential of the human optical nerve – a rough guess of 15 Tbps uncompressed for a simple, two-way tele-presence exchange.  That’s enough data to fill one-sixth of the aggregate capacity of entire first generation Level 3 network, if every fiber in every conduit were lit with today’s optics.
Converge! News Digest, November 3, 1999

NGN 99:  MASSIVE ROUTERS FOR MASSIVE NETWORKS
Cisco Systems anticipates an 8,000% explosion in the bandwidth capacity of major US carrier networks.  Tony Bates, director of marketing for Cisco’s Optical Internetworking said IP trunk capacities will transition from today’s state-or-the-art, dual OC-48c structures to 16-channel OC-48c by early next year.  This will be followed by 16-channel OC-192 in early 2002, and 80-channel OC-192 by 2003.  Such massive capacities will re-define the function and design of core routers.  Key features of the Core IP solution will include highly scalable performance, routing (BGPs, IGPs), traffic engineering (MPLS, RRR), QoS (MDRR, WRED), multicasting, service isolation, sub-second service level restoration and 5-Nines reliability.  Optical integration would provide the core router with direct WDM connections, limited O/E conversions, long-reach capability and optical management.

Pluris, a start-up developing a terabit class super router, believes scalability can best be achieved by adopting a fiber backplane as the basis of its platform.  Joe Kennedy, the company’s CEO, said current product architectures are limited by the copper backplanes that restrict the physical distances between line cards, necessitating the chassis-design of today’s products.  In addition to its optical backplane innovation, Pluris will adopt a multi-stage scheme in which line cards are placed around distributed switches.  The design is expected to connect up to 2,000 line cards for up to 184 Tbps of aggregate capacity.

Qwest Communications is experiencing a doubling in Internet traffic every 4 to 9 months, according to Vab Goel, its vice president of Emerging Technologies, clearly indicating a need for terabit capacities soon.  Today, a coast-to-coast IP packet on the Qwest network passes through 30 SONET termination devices.  Under its  next IP transport paradigm, Goel expects the same IP packet to traverse only 2 termination devices.  Qwest’s requirements for next generation router vendors includes transparent Layer 3 restoration, wire-speed forwarding for small packet sizes, jitter management capability, OC-192c line cards (needed now), transparent maintenance, quadruple access port density per rack, rich edge functionality and advanced SLA measurement.

Ford is in the process of rebuilding its FDDI campus/metro network in Dearborn, Michigan.  The company owsn private fiber routes between the dozens of building on its extensive campus.  Jack Wright, Ford’s Manager of New Business and Technology planning, said the company will choose Gigabit Ethernet as its next generation backbone, preferring raw bandwidth to QoS for the near term.

EXCITE@HOME MOVES TO DUAL OC-48 IP BACKBONE OVER DWDM
Excite@Home’s native end-to-end IP-based backbone now covers 15,000 miles of lit fiber across North America.  The network dual OC-48 channels over DWDM at every major hub and also incorporates physical redundancy and self-healing capabilities.  Cisco Systems is the equipment supplier.  AT&T built and manages the network.  @Work, a division of Excite@Home, is offering wholesale backbone services at DS3, OC3 and OC12 connection speeds.  http://www.home.net/
Excite@Home, November 3, 1999

SBC NAMES ITS SUPPLIERS FOR $6 BILLION “PROJECT PRONTO”
SBC Communications announced initial primary suppliers for its $6 billion Project Pronto initiative aimed at packet-switched convergence and widespread DSL deployment.  Vendors include Advanced Fibre Communications, Inc., Alcatel, Lucent Technologies, Newbridge Networks, Inc., Nortel Networks and Siecor.  SBC said it would place DSLAMs in central offices and deploy neighborhood broadband gateways and fiber optic facilities throughout its territories, in both urban and rural areas.  http://www.sbc.com/
SBC Communications, November 3, 1999

Project Pronto, outlined last month, committed SBC to the following major goals:

* migrate to a converged voice, data and video network based on an ATM distributed network system (ADNS) architecture. 

 * migrate to voice trunking over ATM (VTOA).  SBC intends to begin field trials next year in Houston and Los Angeles. Upon the successful completion of these trials, SBC plans to complete its VTOA deployment in its largest markets by 2004.  VTOA is expected to increase trunk efficiency by 50%, while reducing further investment in traditional tandem circuit-switched equipment

 * introduce Voice-over-ADSL next year, providing customers with up to four additional voice lines, in addition to a DSL line and a primary voice line. SBC is evaluating another VoDSL solution that would provide up to 16 additional voice lines over a symmetrical DSL line.

 * introduce Switched Virtual Circuit (SVC) DSL by next year that would allow telecommuters to switch between their ISP and their corporate LAN without rebooting.

 * guarantee minimum downstream DSL connection speeds of 1.5 Mbps and 6.0 Mbps downstream speeds to more than 60% of its 77 million customers. (current PacBell DSL offerings are tiered at 384 Kbps or 1.5 Mbps minimum downstream speeds)

* provide HDSL services featuring a minimum of 1.5 Mbps upstream and downstream connections

FORE SYSTEMS CLAIMS 25% OF SERVICE PROVIDER CORE ATM SWITCH MARKET
FORE Systems claims a 25% marker share for "Core Switching and Routing" service provider market, according to a new report by Ryan Hankin Kent (RHK).  Criteria to be considered a core switching and routing device included full duplex port capacity of at least 20 Gbps, a non-blocking switch design, and support for multiple interfaces at OC-48.  Market share figures cited from the RHK report include:

Lucent         65%
FORE Systems   25%
NEC            5%
Nortel         5%
http://www.fore.com/press/current/PR911_03.html
http://www.rhk.com/
FORE Systems, November 3, 1999

MAYAN NETWORKS RAISES $60 MILLION FOR MULTISERVICE IP-OPTICAL EXCHANGE
Mayan Networks, a start-up based in Sunnyvale, California secured $60 million in a third round of venture financing, bringing the total funding to $90 million.  The company is developing a “Unifier” solution that aggregates, routes and switches TDM, Frame, IP and ATM traffic at the DS0, packet and cell level across layers 1, 2, 3, and 4 of the network.  The platform is designed to interoperate with existing SONET/SDH equipment, while migrating customers to an all-optical network.  Investors include Amerindo Investment Partners, Berkeley International, Doll Capital Mgt., Technology Crossover Ventures, Brentwood Venture, New Enterprise Associates, Oak Investment Partners and US Venture Partners.  http://www.mayannetworks.com
Mayan Networks, November 1, 1999

JETSTREAM RAISES $40.75 MILLION IN FINANCING FOR VODSL
Jetstream Communications secured an additional $40.75 million in mezzanine financing from major venture capital firms and telecommunications companies to further its development of Voice over DSL solutions.  Funding came from Bowman Capital Management, Amerindo Investment Advisors, Pivotal Partners, Nortel Networks, MCI WorldCom Venture Fund, Mohr, Davidow Ventures, Canaan Partners and Mayfield Fund.  http://www.jetstream.com
Jetstream Communications, November 3, 1999

ALCATEL SHIPS 2.4 MILLION DYNAMITE ADSL CHIPSETS IN 1999
Alcatel is on target to ship 2.4 million DynaMiTe ADSL chipsets in 1999, ahead of its expectations.  The company noted major sales to Central Office, Digital Loop Carrier, Customer Premises Equipment, SOHO (Small Office Home Office), router and test equipment manufacturers.  http://www.alcatel.com
Alcatel, November 3, 1999

ERICSSON AND EXTREME NETWORKS FORM STRATEGIC ALLIANCE
Ericsson and Extreme Networks announced a strategic alliance targeting converged voice, video and data networking for enterprise and Network Service Providers.  Ericsson will resell Extreme Networks' Summit and BlackDiamond switching solutions and will integrate its Layer 3 and Layer 4 Ethernet technology into the next generation, Ericsson enterprise fixed/mobile office concept.  Specifically, Extreme’s its Layer 3 and Layer 4 Ethernet technology will be integrated into Ericsson's MD110 PBX systems as an IP telephony based fixed/mobile communication solution.  http://www.ericsson.se/pressroom/19991103-0042.html
Ericsson, November 3, 1999