Qwest Offers Synchronous Service Transport For Massive Bandwidth

Do you have the need to move massive amounts of data from one location to another. Within your building or campus, you can pull your own fiber cables and transport as much data as fast as required. But when you leave your own property and connect across town or across the country, you need carrier services that can keep up. Quest’s has just the solution called SST or Synchronous Service Transport.

SST is a high speed point to point data service that uses fiber optics and SONET, the Synchronous Optical Network. SONET technology is a mature and highly reliable carrier service based on TDM or Time Division Multiplexing. It was developed for the telephone companies and offered to large businesses and organizations that need unusually bandwidths. Most of the core telco networks are based on SONET.

QWEST offers five bandwidth options throughout their 14 state local service territory where the facilities exist. The bandwidth levels are OC3 at 155 Mbps, OC12 at 622 Mbps, OC24 at 1.24 Gbps, OC48 at 2.5 Gbps and OC192 at 10 Gbps. In addition, Ethernet can be transported on SST. QWEST can provide 10 Mbps standard Ethernet, 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet, and 1,000 Mbps Gigabit Ethernet interfaces. The can even support a situation that has an Ethernet interface at one end and and SONET interface at the other.

The “Fat Pipe” is a popular use for SST. If your operation has exceeded the capacity of a DS3 circuit at 45 Mbps, then you’ll be moving up to fiber optic connections if you don’t already have them. Installation times are much faster, of course, if facilities already exist. Otherwise fiber has to be pulled and termination equipment installed in the building. Some large office buildings and industrial parks are installing fiber optic service as a utility to “sweeten” the deal for potential tenants. With a significant number of users, this can even become a profit center for the operator.

SST can also be used in a Gather/Distribute mode. A number of lower bandwidth services, such as DS1 and DS3, can be gathered and multiplexed onto a higher level service such as OC3. The reverse process, called demultiplexing, can be used to distribute multiple services from a single high capacity service. This is a technology used primarily by service providers themselves.

Another application is using SST at a transport facility. SST can carry a wide variety of protocols, such as video over ATM or LAN interconnections. SST can transport most private line, packet and switched services.

If your business requires significant amounts of bandwidth, you may have multiple options to choose from and at prices that may be significantly less that what you expect. Use the GigaPackets website to explore fiber optic service availability and prices and/or talk over your business needs with an expert consultant.