Friends in the metro

ATLANTA—Metropolitan network buildouts are a bright spot to the carrier spending slowdown and recently, a few more service providers supported that theory. Relative newcomer to the telecommunications realm, Dynegy Global Communications, recently detailed its agreement to swap fiber capacity with Telseon and purchase metropolitan optical equipment from ONI Systems. Together, Dynegy and Telseon are developing an 18-city all-optical network, although the companies plan to go beyond the initial 18-city goal.

Although Telseon was already deploying ONI’s equipment, as part of the partnership the providers are using ONI’s Online transport equipment for their deployments in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, New Jersey, New York, Orlando, Phoenix, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, Tampa and Washington D.C.

“Everyone had been focusing on long haul, but that is really changing,” said Hugh Martin, CEO of ONI Systems, highlighting the increased buildouts of providers in the metro areas.

And to take on those buildouts as quickly as possible, some providers Dynegy and Telseon are naturally turning to each other.

“We can really help each other,” said John Kane, CEO of Telseon.

But just as service providers are looking for entry ways to the metro markets, they are also looking for ways to efficiently deploy new and innovative services.

“And using a company like ONI’s equipment, with DWDM we have the ability to [have] any-to-any protocol, which opens up a new product set for us,” he said. “We really like the idea of integrating a broader suite of services,” said Kane.
Liane LaBarba is Senior Editor at Telephony. She can be reached at labarba@airmail.net.