High-speed WAN links six cities

Internet service provider Viatel will today unveil high-performance wide area network services covering six major European business centres.

Viatel’s VTL Wavenet gives large enterprises the option of 2.5Gbit/s and 10Gbit/s fibre connections as well as Ethernet and co-location services. The ISP’s chief technology officer, Steve Best, said, “The customer base for this will be large enterprises and pan-European businesses that normally put their own networks together. We’re happy to treat them like carriers.”

Viatel chief executive Lucy Woods said a 10Gbit/s connection between two of the cities the ISP has a presence in would cost about e5,000 per month, but it can depend on location.

Normally extra infrastructure is needed between end-points, such as repeaters. “With long-haul transmission technology, all we need to do to light a 10-gig wave between London and Paris is to install two 10Gbit/s transponder cards at each end of the metro network,” Woods said.

Best said Viatel has enhanced both its backbone infrastructure and metropolitan networks with high-capacity optical Dense Wavelength Division Multiplex technology from Chinese vendor Huawei. “The electronics lighting the fibre we had were getting on a bit, so we’re investing in new technology with a lower cost base. Also, we’re getting our fixed cost down by keeping local engineers to look after the infrastructure and in-house staff to look after the services,” added Best.

Viatel’s VTL Wavenet services will initially be available in Amsterdam, London, Paris, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt and Strasbourg.

“Our optical fibre ring goes out from Lowestoft across to Zandvoort in Holland and also across the channel at Eastbourne. Any cut in the ring and we just run the traffic the other way round,” said Best.

Further expansion will enable 1.6Tbit/s on a single fibre pair and allow Viatel to offer 40Gbit/s speeds by the end of the year.