BellSouth has begun deployment of Cisco 7600 series routers to support its newly launched Metro Ethernet Premium Services. The Cisco 7600 Series routers are equipped with Cisco’s Supervisor Engine 720 modules with switching capacities of 720 Gbps. The QoS and high availability capabilities of the Supervisor 720 enable BellSouth to offer SLA commitments to its Premium Service customers in the areas of network latency, availability and time-to-repair. The modules allows Premium Service traffic to receive priority treatment. This helps enable differentiated business services tailored to voice and video applications. Financial terms were not disclosed. http://ww.cisco.com
- In June, BellSouth enhanced its Ethernet transport services for business customers by adding new solutions for business continuity, data and storage center connectivity, sharing of medical and technical imaging, video and VoIP. The Metro Ethernet Service enhancements, known as Premium Service options, are initially available in Atlanta, Miami, New Orleans, Jacksonville and Raleigh, with deployments to take place in additional metro areas throughout 2004. With BellSouth’s Premium Service, customers have several available options including committed bandwidth speeds, bursting capabilities above the committed speeds, traffic prioritization and VLAN aggregation along with Service Level Agreements and Customer Network Management services. BellSouth had been offering Ethernet transport at rates of 10, 100 or 1,000 Mbps. The new Premium Service allows customers to subscribe to additional incremental speeds of 20, 50, 250 and 500Mbps.