Today's Top Stories Online video streaming player Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) has announced a broadband speed rating service intended to show Netflix users which broadband ISPs can deliver the best Netflix viewing experience. The concept follows on Netflix's practice of releasing monthly reports on the top 10 fastest broadband services for Netflix streaming, a practice that has cast a favorable light on Verizon (NYSE: VZ), among other operators. The Netflix ISP Speed Index is not the first index of its kind, with Ookla's Net Index, Pingtest.net, Speedest.net and others covering similar territory, but while those measurement sites are in most cases independent resources, Netflix obviously has something to gain from exposing which the fastest ISPs are, as well as which are absent from that list. The new website measures the average performance of all Netflix streams on each ISP's network, drawn from the streams to Netflix's 33 million customers worldwide. Netflix will update the site on a monthly basis and provide information on the performance of ISPs in several of the countries Netflix is available in. It so far includes speed data for the United States, Mexico, Ireland, the U.K., Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. While both Verizon and Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) have finished high in previous Netflix speed reports, the numbers from the site for February show Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Fiber well ahead of the pack in the United States and the rest of the world at 3.35 Mbps. Sweden's Ownit was second globally at 2.99 Mbps. Finland had the highest average rate among all countries. For more:
- here's the press release Related articles:
Verizon has made Netflix's top 10 list in the past
Bell Canada last year discussed plans for a Netflix competitor Read more about: Netflix, Broadband Service Providers
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Las Vegas -- Jerry James, CEO of COMPTEL, said during the keynote speech at this week's COMPTEL Spring 2013 event that the biggest challenge its member companies face, particularly CLECs that deliver competitive services, is a lack of regulatory clarity.  | James (Image source: COMPTEL) | The three "hottest" items the industry association is advocating for at both the state and federal regulatory level are SIP interconnection, last mile access, and special access, James said. "The network technology, as we all know, has been evolving to a managed IP network, which enables our members to offer managed services," he said. "We also need to make sure that whenever we change technology we don't change the regulatory compliance rules, and competition has to have those to stay in place." James said that with SIP interconnection, COMPTEL doesn't want to hold anyone back, but wants to enable easier ways for its members to work with large incumbent service providers so they can deliver managed services to their customer base. "What we're not doing is trying to pull back the clock and restrict other carriers from doing what they want, and we don't want to regulate the Internet because what we're talking about is managed voice over the network so we can exchange traffic," he said. "SIP interconnection for us is interconnection with these managed networks for the support of these managed voice services and not for over-the-top (OTT) VoIP services." Even though the technology has changed, many of the rules that were set by the FCC's 1996 Telecom Act--such as sections 251 and 252--are still relevant today. Another issue that has been confusing to both CLECs and smaller ILECs is Intercarrier Compensation (ICC) and Universal Service Fund (USF) reform. Under the new rules set by the FCC, the regulator in 2011 developed a proposal to realign the USF and ICC structure by refocusing the Universal Service Fund toward funding new broadband rollouts. "The intercarrier compensation order that many of you were affected by, the FCC did ask for parties to come together on a good faith basis, but we need more from that," James said. "We need more clarity from the FCC." One ray of clarity has begun to emerge as some states have begun to adopt a technology-neutral regulatory stance, while the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has developed a policy for SIP interconnection. But one of the most pressing issues for CLECs is getting access to the ILEC's last-mile copper to deliver Ethernet over Copper (EoC) services to their business customers. A number of the largest CLECs such as Integra, XO and TelePacific and even some ILECs like CenturyLink (NYSE: CTL) and Windstream (Nasdaq: WIN) have been expanding their EoC footprint to extend Ethernet services where they can't immediately prove out a business case for fiber. "We have had a robust effort in our nation to serve the small to medium business (SMB) market with the most ubiquitous network in our country, which is copper," James said. "We have advanced the technology over copper to create new products and services." By having a competitive wholesale market, says James, CLECs and other providers can provide a good quality of experience for their end-user customers. To help stimulate regulatory action at the FCC over the danger of copper retirement action being taken by the larger telcos like AT&T and Verizon, COMPTEL filed comments with the regulator last week. Among other issues, the filing--which cites a letter written by Joshua Brobeck who represents TelePacific, an aggressive advocate of EoC--asks the regulator "to take expedited action to update its copper retirement rules to preserve and promote affordable broadband over copper." The filing said that while it does not debate that service providers like AT&T are going to transition their networks to fiber over time, they "should provide options and accurate information on those options." While there has not been specific reports of copper retirement hurting an end user, it does have the potential to impact an SMB that uses EoC services. COMPTEL wrote in its filing that unless the FCC revisits its rules it could drive up the costs that SMBs pay for services. "The ILECs have not demonstrated that there is significant burden to making copper available," COMPTEL wrote in its filing. "Moreover, since the ILEC is permitted to retire copper without making a functionally and equivalently priced alternative available to competitors, under the current rules, the ILEC is, in effect, permitted to escape its unbundling requirements without having to meet the statutory standard for forbearance." Special report: EoC makes a new dent in Ethernet market Related articles:
Consolidated's Q4 revenue rises to $160.1M on strong broadband, video results
CenturyLink, Windstream grow leadership roles in the Ethernet market
TelePacific introduces 220 Mbps EoC service
Cbeyond extends Ethernet reach into 190,000 U.S. MTUs
Integra Telecom rebrands itself as "Integra," expands focus to enterprise market Read more about: FCC, Clecs
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Las Vegas -- DukeNet Communications, one of the early regional utility telcos to emerge in the mid-1990s, on Monday announced it has expanded outside of its North Carolina home and into four new states. With the completion of this new network upgrade, all of which is based on 100G coherent technologies, the service provider now reaches into Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and Virginia. This expansion should not come as big surprise. When it announced last August that it was deploying Cisco's (Nasdaq: CSCO) ASR 9000 router in four major metro areas in the Carolinas region, the service provider said it had set plans to expand into these other markets. "A lot of the network expansion has been driven by the wireless customer segment, providing connectivity to the tower, providing Ethernet services to those locations and following that customer segment into very similar markets that DukeNet has been accustomed to delivering services to in the Carolinas," said David Herran, VP of Network Architecture and Technology Planning at DukeNet Communications, in an interview with FierceTelecom. "We're going to take a lot of our customer-driven capabilities and all of the things we learned through our growth in the Carolinas and applying it in other Tier 2 and Tier 3 type market capabilities." On the wireless backhaul front, DukeNet is continuing to see new opportunities such as small cells and Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS). "We'll be continuing to develop the wireless backhaul product portfolio in support of that effort," Herran said. With Ethernet and fiber as a focus, Herran said that it's "our intention of taking that Ethernet capability and that ability to provide that service to end-user customers above and beyond the wireless segment." While DukeNet has set forth an aggressive enterprise services growth strategy, Ron Proleika, director of DukeNet Corporate Communications, said that initially they are concentrating their efforts on its Carolinas market where it has a large metro fiber footprint. He added that they "are not going to eliminate any opportunities for creative revenue growth for markets we're expanding into." One of the key points about the network connections is that it includes planned interconnections into major data centers and carrier hotels in these four states that reach major content and IP exchange facilities. Two of the interconnection points in this expansion cycle will be Atlanta, Ga. and Ashburn, Va. Ashburn, for instance, is one of the largest Internet hubs in the United States. These new routes will provide benefits to both its carrier customers, including other data center providers and wireless operators, in addition to its growing enterprise business customer base. "Having those high-powered DWDM facilities in place is critical as necessary for that content and offload ability to bring that kind of content and those types of data center connections onto your network," Herran said. As a way to reduce network latency, its connection into Atlanta network avoids the I-85, while the expansion into Ashburn will avoid the crowded I-95 route. Herran said while he acknowledges the need for financial traders in Northeast markets for low latency, he wants DukeNet to be able to have a network that can respond to other industry verticals that are looking for low latency solutions. "Where we are constructing and partnering with other entities, we are looking to develop those facilities in unique routes separate from the traditional corridors where the majority of the long-haul traffic traverses today," he said. To scale its network to fulfill these new interconnection programs, DukeNet has become the latest service provider to leverage 100G optical technology.
"As we interconnect these markets and in order for us to keep up and to scale with all of the aggregate demand we're preparing our entire core DWDM infrastructure, especially in new Greenfield routes and interconnects between these markets are going in as 100G-capable in support of that scalable strategy," Herran said.
For more:
- see the release Related articles:
DukeNet Communications advances its Ethernet, fiber footprint
DukeNet paves growth path with private partner Alinda Capital
DukeNet becomes joint venture of Duke Energy and Alinda Capital
DukeNet Communications gets cash infusion from Alinda Capital Partners Read more about: Comptel 2013
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Metro edge vendor Overture Networks has announced its foray into software defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV) with the unveiling of its Ensemble Open Service Architecture. The system arrives as numerous vendors in different segments of the networking sector are examining how they can use SDN and network virtualization to help carriers refine different aspects of their network architectures. Overture said it developed Ensemble in 2012, but the formal announcement comes after many other vendors have already stated their SDN positions. The vendor, of Research Triangle Park, N.C., said it will work on some projects this year with Ensemble, but that it will not be generally available until next year. Ensemble OSA is aimed at optimizing and automating service creation, activation and assurance processes by unifying connectivity, computing and storage resources in carrier service delivery architecture to help companies streamline operational expenses. Overture said Ensemble uses OpenFlow and other open APIs to help accomplish this. The architecture is built on three layers: resources; orchestration and control; and network applications. The resources layer is where resource unification occurs, with physical devices such as switches, servers and storage arrays and/or software functions running on virtual machines. The orchestration and control layer features software building block functions for data plane control, resource abstraction and network management that provide the glue connecting the resources to the applications. The network applications layer is where orchestration and control building blocks are leveraged and tied into a service provider's back office systems and those of their business partners to create a service or network function. For more:
- here's the press release Industry Voices: Michael Kennedy breaks down the business case for SDN Related article:
Juniper Networks recently announced its own SDN roadmap Read more about: metro edge
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Las Vegas—XO Communications is seeing new potential use for asymmetrical speed Ethernet over Copper (EoC) as a way to respond to customers who have applications that don't necessarily need a symmetrical connection. Up till now, XO has provided mainly symmetrical products, including its highest 100 Mbps tier offering, which it debuted last fall. Stopping short of revealing an exact date, Sam Koetter, senior product manager of Ethernet services for XO, said the company plans to start offering an asymmetric Ethernet service tentatively at the end of the year. "Everything we have focused on so far has been symmetrical services, but the one thing we're looking at, and if we launch it will be some time like Q4 this year, we might start looking at some asymmetrical services," Koetter said in an interview with FierceTelecom. "That would be something like 20 Meg down and 3 Meg upstream at a much lower price than our current 20 Meg symmetrical service." By offering an asymmetric service, the CLEC said it would be able to offer higher speeds without having to add more copper pairs. Regardless of the customer type or size, if a customer is using something like just Dedicated Internet Access (DIA), they aren't doing much more than Internet surfing, which is mainly all downstream bandwidth. Despite the spate of commercials from cable operators that tout higher speeds, Koetter said some businesses really don't need a symmetric bandwidth connection. Of course, the baseline SMB services that a cable operator would provide over their existing DOCSIS network would be asymmetrical. "If you look at normal traffic patterns there are a lot of customers that don't need symmetrical services," he said. "There are a lot of customers that feel they require a symmetrical service, but the reality is they don't because most of the traffic is all downstream." Koetter added that by introducing an "asymmetrical service we'll be going after a growing niche." Not everyone is sure that an asymmetric EoC service is needed, however. Windstream (Nasdaq: WIN), while not opposed to offering asymmetrical EoC, isn't sure where it would fit in the company's current portfolio yet. The service provider this week announced a nationwide expansion of its Carrier Switched Ethernet service targeting both of its ILEC and CLEC territories. "The question is where does asymmetrical EoC fall within that spectrum of how you want to price it and what the value proposition is going to be: Is it a more beefed up version of DSL or does it jump to that more robust and reliable level of Ethernet?" said Austin Herrington, director of enterprise and carrier product marketing for Windstream, in an interview with FierceTelecom. "It is something we continue to look at but we have not seen a real driver to dive in there." Special report: EoC makes a new dent in Ethernet market Related articles:
COMPTEL's James: CLECs need more regulatory certainty
Windstream announces Carrier Switched Ethernet expansion, names new chairman Read more about: Comptel 2013, Windstream
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