WorldNet wields all-IP network to compete in Puerto Rico

Puerto Rican competitive carrier WorldNet Telecommunications took advantage of Puerto Rican Law 213 – the island’s equivalent of the US Telecom Act – to jump into the resale business and use UNE-P lines purchase from incumbent PRTC to build a profitable business. When it became obvious that UNE-P wasn’t a long-term strategy, however, the carrier faced a difficult choice: WorldNet could invest in the tried and true TDM technology to build out its own facilities, or it could take a chance on an all-IP infrastructure, using technology that would pose more of an integration challenge. The decision to go the latter route hasn’t been without its points of pain, but WorldNet is now a facilities-based service provider seeing significant growth in IP traffic and more confident of its future.

“Today we feel like we are turning a corner, and we’re at the point where we stop worrying about whether we have a reliable network and start focusing on making that network sing,” said Larry Freedman, who has served as president and CEO of WorldNet. “We are focusing more on sales and marketing and strategies to address the advantages of being all IP.”

The road to this stage was filled with potholes, Freedman admits. “Consultants warned us we would have all kinds of integration problems, and we did,” he said. “We had some finger-pointing – Vendor A saying it’s Vendor B’s problem and Vendor B saying it’s Vendor A’s,” Freedman said. “We had stumbles and even some outages, but none of it was beyond what we should have thought or did think at the time.”

But what WorldNet now has is an MPLS-based network using a MetaSwitch softswitch in a central location and 11 co-location spots in PRTC Central Offices, featuring HDSL II gear from Zhone Technologies and Tellabs. WorldNet is also adding more fiber optics to its network, leasing capacity from existing network operators, and is also providing broadband wireless service, initially through a partner, as a backup option on an island vulnerable to hurricanes, Freedman said. The all-IP approach enables WorldNet to support all forms of access, fiber, copper and wireless, and the next goal is to bring the wireless access “on-net” through its own broadband wireless facilities, Freedman said.

“We like to think we have a quiver of arrows when it comes to access,” Freedman said. “We are deploying our own fiber, not just in the network but to customers. We can offer really good DSL, using [copper bonding] to get into the 10 megabit to 20 megabit range, so we can still find a way to love copper. We are right in the middle of a wireless broadband project. Today we already offer broadband wireless as an adjunct through a partner, mostly for resiliency. The next step is to integrate that organically into an on-net offer. We are testing that. We have looked at the [broadband] stimulus offering to help support that because we think the wireless broadband offering would bring broadband to a lot of Puerto Rico where it isn’t available today.”

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