VPS is planning further tests to enhance the bandwidth-on-demand service beyond just-in-time provisioning. These enhancements will include dynamic reroute, additional interface (e.g., SAN), different levels of redundancy and expanding the optical control plane to other vendors using ENNI.

    The optical control plane technology allows electronic devices within optical networks to easily communicate with each other in much the same way SS7 signaling allows switches to communicate with each other in traditional voice telephone networks. This additional level of intelligence in the network itself simplifies operations and allows for near real-time provisioning of specified new circuits. A request for a new circuit can be forwarded to a single control-plane-enabled network element, eliminating the need to perform a number of manual steps at multiple locations, as previously required. Instead, the request is routed to the appropriate end points of the proposed circuit, and intermediate control-plane network elements are queried for available bandwidth to establish the end-to-end circuit. Once the circuit path is successfully determined, cross-connects are automatically established in each network element, equipment options are provisioned, and service is generally established within a matter of hours, if not minutes.

    Currently, all on-network bandwidth-on-demand circuits will be provisioned with two diverse paths through the network, providing the same level of reliability and redundancy associated with the more traditional SONET networks.

    The bandwidth-on-demand service allows carriers to provision circuits on-demand for customers, such as TV networks, covering political conventions. It also enables them to deploy bandwidth-on-demand in a carrier hotel and take advantage of the flexible bandwidth in their own backbone.

    O’Neill says bandwidth-on-demand offers additional flexibility over and above traditional dedicated SONET rings. “Because we are not linking the nodes at the premises directly to each other, we are hooking them up to a cloud, for each site they activate, they can right size each node,” he says. “If this were to be done on a SONET ring, the nodes would have to be the same speed regardless of the demand. That allows a customer to make lower commitments at some sites and higher at others. And, they can mix and match different customers on a single entrance facility.”