BT announced high-capacity Ethernet connectivity to three leading co-location data centers in the UK: TelecityGroup in Joule House, Manchester,and Equinix (LDN5) in Slough and a further one in Leeds. BT Wholesale’s data center PoP rollout began earlier this year and already included Telehouse Europe North and the Global Switch1 data center in London, as well as one of the UK’s largest data centers in Newport, South Wales.
The new data center PoPs provide BT’s wholesale customers with Ethernet connections into BT’s core network. BT said the investing in the new Ethernet equipment inside leading data centers enables it to substantially reduce the connection and rental costs for customers, as well as speeding up the time it takes to interconnect with its network.
Paul Beacham, General Manager, TDM Data, Ethernet & Optical Product Management at BT Wholesale said: “This is part of a wide investment in BT’s Ethernet footprint across the UK, and it comes at a time when the cloud and hosted communications services market continues to grow rapidly. We believe the huge benefits of the cloud can only be achieved if hosted services are run over reliable, high capacity fibre network connectivity, which is delivered flawlessly. These services are being adopted in increasing numbers by businesses of all sizes, so BT is investing in more network options to support that growth in demand. We want to be in the right locations and at the right price for our customers in order to support, satisfy and stimulate the growth of UK plc.”
BT cited the following advantages for its Ethernet POPs:
- Resilience. BT’s Ethernet backhaul network provides fully resilient fiber routes and automatic traffic switching.
- Speed of provision. The standard provision lead times for 1G ports in these locations are just 10 working days. This can offer significant reductions in lead times, some five or six times quicker than buying standard direct access products
- Lower costs. Up to 75% cheaper than traditional access using direct network access products.
BT also outlined plans to launch further data center PoP locations during 2014 as well as supporting higher bandwidths with 10 Gbps ports available in key locations. In 2015, the company plans to extend its next generation optical network into a number of data center locations supporting national connectivity at 10 Gbps, 40 Gbps and 100 Gbps.
http://www.btplc.com/News/Articles/ShowArticle.cfm?ArticleID=96EB447B-B1BA-4F78-ACFD-794871361D57
