Genuity ready to sell extra bandwidth

(Telephony) Genuity has some extra capacity in its next-generation network that it’s making available at “very competitive market rates” to those looking for a solution that rides “in-between” laying dark fiber or building a fully managed SONET network.

“I tend to think of it as Lincoln Logs,” said Bo Forbes, Genuity’s senior vice president of managed wavelength services. “Now you can just come in and let Genuity be your optical network provider … and just build services on top of that.”

Called Genuity’s managed wavelength services, the network opportunity was unveiled yesterday at Spring ISPCon in Baltimore. Offering 10 gigabits of dedicated optical bandwidth, it is strictly a backbone solution, although Genuity is working with partners in the local metro loop, Forbes said.

Potential customers are ISPs, which are “a little shaky;” IXCs, because it’s a “natural fit for them to extend their space;” and the “bigger market” of international carriers seeking to establish a U.S. presence without building their own networks, Forbes said.

Also high on the customer list are large enterprise customers who want to use the backbone to connect different sites across the nation, and cable operators looking to build a national network of linked headends.

Offering this kind of bandwidth will not impact the networks that Genuity uses for its own business-to-business operations, Forbes emphasized.

“We’re managing the amount of capacity we think we’re going to use,” Forbes said. “Otherwise, they wouldn’t let me sell this.”