BellSouth unveils wholesale optical solution

SAN ANTONIO—BellSouth introduced a high-speed optical transport solution targeted primarily at wholesale customers and based on dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) technology, at the Competitive Telecommunications Association conference yesterday.

Dubbed “Wavelength Service,” the solution also is being targeted to retail customers, but BellSouth considers the wholesale market the “sweet spot,” according to Elliott Bryant, senior director of marketing. Carriers’ carriers and middle-tier carriers that are trying to make “build versus lease” decisions or that have a significant long-haul component and are seeking local loop connectivity, are the best candidates for the solution, said Bryant.

“Customers with high bandwidth needs and with multiple protocols would find this advantageous,” he said.

Wavelength, which has been in development for about a year, supports IP, Sonet, asynchronous transfer mode, or Ethernet, and is capable of transporting digital optical signals with two maximum transmission speeds: 1.25 Gb/s and 2.5 Gb/s. It will be available throughout BellSouth’s nine-state region.

According to Nancy Starcher, BellSouth’s manager of access transport, the solution isn’t intended to replace the carrier’s DS-3 product, but its introduction is reflective of changing times and shifts in customer needs.

“DS-3 will continue to be our bread and butter and is still a growth market,” Starcher said. “We’re not expecting an immediate migration to Wavelength. But we introduced it as a factor of everybody sending more data.”

For retail customers, Wavelength is expected to allow them to move more data at higher speeds over fewer physical connections, said BellSouth.

Bryant said BellSouth ultimately expects to achieve a 20% penetration rate for Wavelength among all wholesale customers, a process he said would take about three years. In the meantime, BellSouth plans to introduce a companion suite of managed services and will begin testing these products in the third quarter. In addition, it plans to introduce a ring version of the solution in the fourth quarter. When demand justifies it, BellSouth will add a 10 Gb/s interface onto the ring, as well as the ability to multiplex, to give its customers “a little more aggregation capability,” Starcher said. Currently, Wavelength is a point-to-point solution.

Wavelength will be offered to customers on a flat rate basis, “even though our OSS supports billing on a mileage basis.” Bryant said. “Flat rate simplifies the process and our customers have told us that they want us to find ways to simplify the way we do business with them.”