Big bird goes for IP

Broadwing settled deeper into its IP-networking nest last week by extending its relationship with Cisco Systems to offer new IP services. At the same time, the carrier unveiled its marketing game plan.

With Cisco, Broadwing plans to develop and deploy new services over its 15,000-mile fiber optic network. The two companies also will expand the Gemini2000 network to provide additional capacity and routing capabilities and improve reliability and redundancy.

Broadwing plans to offer new products over the Gemini2000 to business customers and ISPs, including virtual private network (VPN), voice-over-IP and multiprotocol label switching services. Both companies will market each other's products, and Cisco will provide network design and technical support to Broadwing's customers.

The companies decided to formally announce their working relationship to benefit both companies, said Jeff Lackey, president of Broadwing IT consulting. "This will enable our ability to play on a national scale with the design, implementation and support of Cisco technology." Cisco also gains a platform on which to prove its technology, he said.

Relationships similar to Broadwing's and Cisco's are common these days, said Kevin Mitchell, an analyst of service provider networks for Infonetics Research. "We are seeing in our research a lot of carriers becoming channels for providers," he said. "It's a nice way for Cisco to boost its enterprise sales."

In addition, Cisco's acquisitions of Altiga Networks and Compatible Systems last week will expand its VPN customer premises equipment (CPE) product offering, which will, in turn, allow Broadwing to offer VPN service over its IP network, Mitchell said. "Cisco was lacking CPE VPN devices. The purchases will help its customers offer VPNs from the customer premises equipment side."

With a nationwide OC-48 IP backbone, Broadwing can do something that no one else can, Lackey said, referring to the carrier's plans to offer value-added services over IP. "And Cisco is our business partner in that." As part of the agreement expansion, Cisco and Broadwing opened an IP network operations center in Cincinnati from which they will manage and maintain the Gemini2000 network and ZoomTown.com's DSL network. The two also unveiled an incubation lab in Cincinnati where Broadwing customers can test applications on Cincinnati Bell's regional and Gemini2000's national networks.