Excess fiber capacity expands isp network services
By PAUL PALUMBO
Ongoing fiber build-outs by major telecommunications providers such as WorldCom Inc. in Jackson, MS, and smaller competitive access providers such as Brooks Fiber Properties Inc., St. Louis, MO, coupled with the deployment of wavelength-division multiplexing (wdm) techniques over Synchronous Optical Network (Sonet) OC-48 (2.5 Gbits/sec) and OC-192 (10 Gbits/sec), have created leasing opportunities for pure-bandwidth suppliers. The experience of Apex Global Internet Services (agis), Dearborn, MI, shows how companies can take advantage of these opportunities to offer dedicated, high-bandwidth connectivity to the Internet backbone and to Internet service providers (isps).
Several strategies for acquiring capacity are available to bandwidth wholesalers like agis, including deploying new fiber, acquiring dark fiber, or leasing excess bandwidth. Philip Lawlor, the company`s chief executive, has been quoted as saying that the company will use any method feasible to gain the transmission capacity it needs. However, according to Alan Wood, director of operations, "Bandwidth is really agis`s product and therefore, deploying fiber is not critical to what we do. In many cases we simply couldn`t run the network as cheaply as carriers sell it to us."
agis therefore leases bandwidth from WorldCom at DS-3 (44.736 Mbits/sec) to OC-3 (155 Mbits/sec) rates and uses that capacity to furnish Internet access through about 200 points of presence around the country (see figure). agis also buys bandwidth from ixc Communications, Brooks Fiber, at&t, and all the regional Bell operating companies.
"agis is not using dark fiber, and there is a reason for that," says Wood. The regional Bells will not typically provide dark fiber on a lease basis to companies such as agis because there is a policy that a "service" must be provided over the used fiber. This service frequently must be dial tone or digital signaling. agis has deployed fiber to connect its offices, but that requires only short runs of less than a mile.
David Takata, Internet analyst with Gruntal & Co. in Beverly Hills, CA, notes, "Almost all non-telecommunications isps have taken the leasing route. agis claims to be the granddaddy of isps and has more Internet accounts than anyone. Without agis, a lot of isps would go dark."
agis customers include PacBell Internet, Bell Atlantic Internet, Electronic Data Systems (eds), and alltel, among others. eds, in turn, handles bandwidth for Pointcast Network. alltel is also an investor in agis.
Bandwidth for hire
Analysts claim that almost any provider can hook up bandwidth, but few companies understand how to operate switches and routers in an Internet protocol environment and how to provide service to the isps. Wood says that more than half of the company`s customers are buying 45-Mbit/sec bandwidth.
agis made a decision to use Asynchronous Transfer Mode (atm) protocol and has since become expert in this business, according to Takata. One of the more central network positions of agis`s bandwidth business is its so-called peering service agreements. In some cases, other carriers do not use atm to interconnect into other networks, and agis is capable of handling those important hand-off duties as well.
The advent of wdm techniques has reduced what was becoming a serious capacity logjam. Last year, agis would have had to wait up to six months for additional bandwidth to become available after an order had been placed.
"wdm has really opened up more opportunities for bandwidth providers like agis," Woods says. "In some areas, network providers were near capacity exhaust." Last fall, for example, the company encountered a situation in which major providers simply did not have capacity to sell along the West Coast (particularly in Los Angeles, CA, and Silicon Valley), even though they would accept orders. Woods says that it was impossible to get lines from Phoenix, AZ, to Los Angeles, or Phoenix to Silicon Valley. Other overtaxed areas included Miami, FL, and transcontinental circuits.
As more fiber has been illuminated, however, the scarcity has lessened. For example, in certain situations where agis previously could acquire only DS-3 circuits on the West Coast, the company now has access to OC-3 Sonet. "The East Coast used to have projections of four to six months of bandwidth availability, but now those projections stand at 30 days. That`s a common time frame for carriers when they have excess capacity to sell," says Woods.
agis has also deployed Ascend`s grf 400 router equipment, which has boosted its ability to supply clean bandwidth. Both the East and West Coast are running off one router at close to 300 Mbits/sec (approximately two OC-3s at full speed).
"An OC-3 at full capacity is a high rate of speed for the Internet," claims Woods. "It may not be for other data carriers with private networks, but a full-bore OC-3 would have been unheard of for the Internet two years ago." He says that agis anticipates the need for 622-Mbit/sec OC-12 sometime in 1998.
agis believes the next area of bandwidth opportunity will result from the build-out of fiber plant into additional rural routes. Because the telephone companies cannot use all that new bandwidth for voice calls, data communications and the Internet are attractive leasing options.
"A lot of this bandwidth now in demand is coming from smaller isps popping up in rural areas, which gives companies an incentive to run fiber there," Woods explains. q
Paul Palumbo writes from Seaside, CA.