Expanding its fiber-based transport services to capture more of the market for wholesale carrier services, the wholesale unit of Verizon Communications said it has enhanced the technology behind its Optical Wave Service. The new capabilities include enabling carrier customers to interconnect with Verizon’s SONET ring services, which will allow them to move into new regions by simply provisioning Optical Wave circuits rather than connecting by adding new nodes to a ring.
In addition, Verizon is moving to 40-Gbps capacity on OWS, in what it calls the first availability of 40G in a point-to-point product. Operators will also be able to aggregate lower speed services at Verizon facilities into 10-Gbps channels.
The new enhancements follow a security upgrade for wholesale customers earlier this month, when Verizon said it would incorporate the IPSec standard into three of its IP voice platforms.
The wholesale market has become increasingly competitive as competitive service providers look to expand their wholesale business while the big carriers, like Verizon, seek to move down-market into the small and medium-sized business sector. At the Comptel Plus tradeshow, in March, Verizon said it will offer three new SMB service bundles including a SIP gateway service, a dedicated 1.5 Mbps T1 product, and a dedicated Ethernet service. Each of the offerings – which will last only until March 2011 – come bundled with discounted hardware.
At the same time, many midsized wholesale carrier customers are finding savings by bringing their VoIP operations in-house as the cost of VoIP network gear continues to fall. For instance, Mediacom Communications, the nation’s seventh largest cable company, said earlier this year it would bring its IP-voice service operations in-house, transitioning off of the Sprint Nextel network. That makes moves like Verizon’s OWS enhancements all the more critical for major carriers looking to retain wholesale customers.
