ISP in an instant: Telcordia platform to quickly transform CLECs

Start-ups seeking new revenue streams may find an answer in Telcordia Technologies' IP Rapid Deployment platform. Expected to be announced today, the new platform will allow competitive local exchange carriers to deploy IP service in less than two months.

"Within six weeks of coming to us, they would be able to roll out IP services such as e-mail, Web hosting and Net news services," said Max Figueroa, senior director of the IP Rapid Deployment platform for Telcordia.

Designed to provide a carrier-grade solution, the platform has no single point of failure and a low initial cost that allows a CLEC to start small but quickly scale, Figueroa said.

"It can grow to very large deployments by adding components," he said. "There's no throw-away hardware - no hardware that couldn't be part of an evolution."

Reflecting its name, the IP Rapid Deployment platform was "designed expressly to be rolled out very quickly," he said. All these features have earned the platform a nickname: "Instant IP networking."

It also has been dubbed "ISP in a box" because Telcordia packs all the equipment - which can be installed on a 7-foot rack - in one box, Figueroa said.

Telcordia includes the equipment, the configured software that enables e-mail applications and Web-hosting capabilities, and its expertise in coordinating the pieces.

"Part of our service is to go through an acceptance test," Figueroa said.

A unique aspect is Telcordia's chosen server architecture and configuration, which provides high capacity, he said. Telcordia's platform includes Sun Microsystems servers, Foundry Networks switches and Cisco Systems routers. Such well-known vendor names will "enable CLECs to get into the business having some confidence," Figueroa said.

Quick time to market is another draw, he said. Six weeks to deployment is one-third the time it would take for a company to enter the ISP arena from scratch via traditional methodologies, he said.

"They can roll out the service and get into that revenue stream," Figueroa said. "They'll get there faster and cheaper than if they did it themselves."

The IP infrastructure provided via Telcordia's platform can be used in conjunction with any access mechanism, including modem pools for dial-up access, a DSL access multiplexer if a CLEC had a DSL environment, or radio equipment for fixed wireless access.

"The platform is really designed for companies that are starting out," he added. "We've priced it so you could start with anywhere from 1000 to 5000 users and grow from there." A standard configuration for 5000 to 25,000 users costs between $200,000 and $500,000.

The scalability and software development aspects of the platform will appeal to CLECs and enterprises, said Char Haidley, director of consulting for New Paradigm Resources Group.

"Start-ups don't have that much money and don't want to spend the money to accommodate things down the road," Haidley said. "They need a system they can go in with that can grow with them."

Such companies also don't have time to develop software, she added.

"ISPs have to get up and get running in order to compete and get customers online. They don't have time to figure out how to make software systems work," she said.

However, any initiative relying on the Internet market's future is risky, Haidley said.

"To design an ideal system that's going to work and do everything you want it to do even five years down the road is really tough to do right now."