IXC builds optical networks with Nortel

IXC Communications announced last week that it will use Northern Telecom's optical networking for a coast-to-coast network buildout and southeastern route. The new routes comprise phases two and three of IXC's buildout plan and are valued at $100 million.

The coast-to-coast route will link San Francisco, Los Angeles, Fort Worth, Texas, and New York. The 1500-mile fiber route in the southeast will connect New York, Washington, Atlanta and Houston.

IXC is deploying Nortel's multiwave optical repeater system with dense wavelength division multiplexing. Nortel's S/DMS TransportNode OC-192 will be used to deliver up to 80 Gb/s of multimedia, data and voice traffic.

A second S/DMS TransportNode OC-192 router will be added later because IXC has "already exceeded its capacity" with the initial one, said Michael Vent, executive vice president of network engineering and operations at IXC Communications.

"Of course we'll have additional equipment for spurs, which we are adding daily," he continued. "We'll spur into the major cities and start to provide frame relay, asynchronous transfer mode and private line [communications] into the OC-n product." The spurs along the southeastern corridor include Raleigh and Charlotte, N.C., New Orleans, Jackson, Miss., and Baltimore.

That IXC is meeting its fiber rollout schedule is a good sign, said Dan Taylor, managing director of networking and telecommunications at The Aberdeen Group.

"IXC is very cautious and thoughtful about the technologies [it deploys]," he said. "They have good engineering behind it. The really important thing is that they are continuing to build out the network according to the plan."

The two new routes will be completed by the end of the year. IXC's OC-192 DWDM network is available to carriers, Bell regional holding companies, cable operators and Internet service providers.