Broadband gets a job

The growing focus on small and medium-sized businesses - many that are just now getting their first Internet access - has caused reverberations among the companies manufacturing access equipment for those high-usage, high-dollar customers. ISPs that have just provided Internet access and data services now want to distinguish themselves by offering enhanced services, particularly those that may become critical to business customers.

Access equipment for the commercial multitenant unit (MTU) market has the potential to become a $6 billion market, according to connectivity equipment vendor Tut Systems. Tut provides residential Ethernet extensions that permit high-speed access over copper phone lines. Now the company wants to get into the business of enabling ISPs to bring high speeds to office buildings over whatever network is available.

"Our customers are service providers," said Sandy Benett, chief operating officer for Tut. "So we asked them, `What's interesting to you?' Of course, data interests them - that's what they're doing today. But they want to be able to provide other services, now and in the future."

One of Tut's commercial-building ISP partners, Allied Riser Communications, is interested in providing two or three streams of business video, another channel of videoconferencing and, eventually, voice over IP, Benett said.

"Moving from just access to services requires a higher level of intelligence distributed around the network," Benett said. Tut's newly launched IntelliPOP MTU solution puts intelligence at the network operations center (NOC), in the building and on the customer premises (see figure).

The solution consists of four components. The IntelliPOP service multiplexer resides in the basement of the building and can handle any WAN connection coming into the building - DSL, T-1, DS-3, OC-3, cable or even wireless. Proprietary technology allows this device to act like an ATM switch, a label switch router or an Ethernet bridge.

Within the building, providers may find themselves restricted to existing Category 3 copper wire in the risers, particularly if it's an old building. But they also may have access to Category 5 wire or optical fiber. Tut's IntelliPOP solution builds in flexibility to deal with any of these transport infrastructures.

Currently, Tut can provide 2 Mb/s symmetrical DSL, but when the RiserSmart component ships this summer, customer ISPs can offer up to 15 Mb/s of symmetrical very high bit-rate DSL, suitable for delivering video. By the end of the year, the company hopes it can provide asymmetrical DSL - 52 Mb/s in one direction and 10 Mb/s in the other.

The IntelliPOP solution terminates in the PremGate service platform, which can be tailored to meet the needs of the ISP's specific business customer.

Finally, a remote service management system located in the ISP's NOC integrates billing and back-office functions with monitoring capabilities and a policy server.

"Allied Riser and Broadband Office are building networks of commercial properties in many areas of the country at once," said analyst Robert Lyman of Widmark Research Partners. "They need to build in headroom to accommodate services such as video - things that their business clients may not want now but that may well become the killer enterprise app 12 months from now."