Sphera gets aggressive

(Telephony) As major telcos outsource more to conserve cash and networking providers vie for their attention, metro core network provider Sphera Optical Networks today announced it is ahead of schedule on the buildout of its metro area networks. In addition, the company has formed partnerships with collocation providers in order to provide metro core connectivity.

Sphera’s network includes Boston, New York/Northern New Jersey, Miami, Dallas, Los Angeles and London. The company also will add Washington D.C., northern Virginia and Amsterdam to its roster.

Because network management is key for its six customers--Global Crossing, Broadwing, Universal Access, Williams Communications and two others which the company has not yet revealed--Sphera chose ONI Systems’ metro dense wave division multiplexing equipment, which allows carriers to view and manage their services as they would their own networks.

“The tightness in the market has driven a lot of people towards outsourcing rather than building out their own networks,” said Harold Grossnickle, CEO for Sphera. “What’s going to differentiate us as a service provider will be low cap ex and low op ex, so carriers can meet their price expectations and we can still make a profit.”

Among the members included in the partnership program are: AccessColo, Colo.com, Equinix, Gateway Colocation, LayerOne, Switch and Data and Telex. Thanks to the partners, Sphera will be able to provide metro network core connectivity from multiple service access locations, said Grossnickle.

In the future, Sphera plans to add three more points of presence in the New York/New Jersey area and add more than 3 Tb/s of scalable capacity to its network, according to Grossnickle. In addition the company hopes to address the needs of enterprise customers by providing optical solutions for the enterprise space, he said.