Nortel's PBT Powers Carriers to Deliver High-Bandwidth Services Like Video

To deliver bandwidth essential to meeting skyrocketing customer demand driven by video, advanced business services and popularity of sites like YouTube and Facebook, several new carriers are adopting PBT solutions from Nortel, designed to free-up and expand network capacity. groupe-e, Highland Telephone Cooperative and Southern Light are the latest to deploy Nortel's Provider Backbone Transport (PBT), which brings both intelligence and simplicity to the bedrock networking protocol - Ethernet."Analysts project that unless networks are upgraded now, users could see the Internet could slow dramatically by 2010," said Philippe Morin, president, Metro Ethernet Networks, Nortel. "How will the Internet be able to grow to accommodate video, peer-to-peer traffic and the wakening giant of HD video? One carrier network at a time, but only if that network has the intelligence to deliver bandwidth where it's needed, when it's needed. The network also needs to be able to accommodate very high traffic - and that's what PBT does best for carriers."

What is PBT?
PBT is a new technology that creates known paths for data traffic through an Ethernet network. It acts as a guide to channel information through the network, using pre-determined paths to carry traffic and keeping those paths open. This is critical for voice and video, which are sensitive to delays and can quickly degrade when left on its own to find its way across a crowded network. Ethernet is a foundational networking technology that is simple to operate and inexpensive. (Listen to the Podcast from Philippe Morin here.)

Using PBT
In Switzerland, the groupe-e company provides electricity to customers as well as bandwidth-intensive telecommunications services, including VoIP, high-speed Internet access and business services. The critical factor in choosing PBT for its network was to introduce new services like advanced business applications, quickly and cost-effectively.

"Our network investment is opening up real possibilities for saving money, improving business performance and looking at new opportunities to generate additional revenue," said Christian Tinguely, director, Energy Service, groupe-e. "For example, the increased bandwidth PBT provides allows us to offer enhanced customer services such as Gigabit Ethernet Connectivity for our small and medium business customers. PBT also positions us to extend our current residential services to include VoIP and IPTV in the future."

Highland Telephone Cooperative in Tennessee provides quad-play services, including Internet access, telephone services, wireless and video services to local residents. The company is using PBT to provide video backhaul services, as well as high-capacity networking to nearby school districts.

"Using PBT we are able to easily and cost-effectively give our customers sophisticated, high-bandwidth services like video and high-speed Internet access that are not typically found in suburban and rural areas. The simplicity of PBT deployment means we can use what we need now and increase our capabilities as required," said Fred Terry, general manager, Highland Telephone Cooperative.

Southern Light is a carrier operating on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. that provides wholesale networking capacity to other operators and large enterprises. They selected Nortel's PBT solution because of its simplicity of operations as well as the attractive economics.

"Due to continued growth, our network is very dynamic with flexible service offerings customized to suit a diverse customer base. The combination of PBB and PBT offers the ability to deploy point-to-point, point-to-multipoint and any-to-any Ethernet services quickly. The traffic engineering and fast reroute capabilities of PBT also allows us to manage resources more effectively while offering a high degree of availability," said Jack de la Garza, chief technology officer, Southern Light.

Nortel has more than 30 carrier Ethernet customers, with more in trials underway globally.