Eastern Tennessee Gets Lit for Business Fiber Optic Service

It is well known that Nashville, Tennessee is a major hub for many fiber optic network providers. As a major center for commerce in the South, there are many health care, publishing banking, transportation and, of course, music companies that need the high bandwidth you can only get with fiber optic connections. This need is becoming more and more important beyond Nashville, throughout the entire state of Tennessee.

This is why EarthLink, a major bandwidth service provider, has recently completed a major buildout of fiber assets that cover Eastern TN cities. It includes a 343 mile fiber route from Nashville to Knoxville, a diverse fiber route from Knoxville to Chattanooga and another fiber route from Knoxville to Bristol. There are network interconnection points in Cookeville, Oak Ridge, Cleveland, Sweetwater and Morristown. Major POPs are located in Knoxville, Morristown, Johnson City and Bristol.

EarthLink’s Points of Presence (PoPs) on the Eastern Tennessee Middle Mile Broadband Project can deliver up to 10 Gbps DWDM optical services. DWDM or Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing is a technique used to multiply the bandwidth capacity of fiber optic links. Instead of using a single laser beam to carry the traffic, DWDM uses dozens or more lasers of different colors (wavelengths) to create independent high bandwidth carriers through the fiber strand. Each wavelength is an independent channel and does not interact with the other wavelengths on the strand. It’s like multiplying your fiber optic cable by 10x to 100x the capacity.

In addition to providing high bandwidth connections directly to businesses and universities, EarthLink has the capacity to offer fiber optic services up to 10 Gbps on a wholesale basis to Internet service providers (ISPs) that serve smaller businesses and consumers, especially in smaller communities. One of the big stumbling blocks to expanding rural broadband has been the lack of what’s called “middle mile” infrastructure. It is this middle mile backbone that EarthLink has deployed. Other ISPs connect to the backbone and then provide “last mile” connections directly to users. Some ISPs do this wirelessly and are known as WISPs or Wireless Internet Service Providers.

EarthLink headquarters are located in Atlanta, GA. More than a regional carrier, EarthLink owns and operates 28,000 route miles of fiber, 90 metro fiber rings and 4 data centers to serve nearly all of the United States. Business connectivity services include MPLS networks, Internet access, data T1 and bonded T1 lines, full and fractional DS3, SONET full and fractional bandwidth at OC-3 (155 Mbps) OC-12 (611 Mbps) and OC-48 levels (2.5 Gbps), metro fiber Ethernet and SIP trunking. In addition, EarthLink provides other network services, such as managed security, hosted PBX, colocation and cloud hosting.

What’s driving the need for all this fiber optic bandwidth? Business technology has changed rapidly over the last decade or so. Small and well as large companies now find their business processes IT driven. The benefits have been wider communication, faster agility and higher productivity. Some industries, like video production and delivery, are inherently high bandwidth in nature. They can’t function without fiber level bandwidth. Many others are finding that the large cost savings they can realize by moving to the cloud comes with a new requirement. Where once lower speed wireline services could handle communications in and out of the company, the cloud makes all servers remote and requires fiber speeds to prevent productivity killing latencies.

How about your company? If you are located in Eastern Tennessee or anywhere else in the country, there are new fiber assets available at better prices than ever before. Get competitive quotes on fiber optic services for business to support your demanding needs.



Note: Tennessee map courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

5 Ways to Access An MPLS Network

MPLS networks have become a highly desirable option to expensive proprietary WAN networks or the public Internet with its performance and security issues. Let’s take a look at what MPLS networks have to offer and the variety of options that you can use to gain access.

You might think of an MPLS network as something of a private Internet for business. MPLS networks are privately owned and operated and don’t offer resources or connectivity for residential users. MPLS is a B2B or Business to Business service. There are numerous service providers, each with their own MPLS networks having regional, national or international service footprints. In addition, there are service providers who specialize in interconnecting MPLS networks to create an even larger reach. The result is a multiple-MPLS or MPLS Mesh network.

MPLS is often the core network of a major service provider. The reason is the versatility offered by this technology. The underlying network is either IP native or SONET/SDH fiber optic service at 10 Gbps or higher. Many networks are now migrating from 40 Gbps to 100 Gbps, which is considered state of the art. What makes the network MPLS is a unique switching and routing scheme that is protocol-agnostic.

The name MPLS is an acronym for Multi-Protocol Label Switching. Multi-Protocol means that the network will accept Voice, Data or Video IP, SONET, T-Carrier or other traffic types. At any given time, the network may be transporting a wide variety of protocols without corruption or interference. Label Switching is the technique that wraps each packet that enters the network with a tag that is used only to forward that packet to the correct destination with an appropriate class of service. Those labels are removed as the packets exit the network in exactly the same state as they arrived.

Think of MPLS networks as private superhighway systems and access as the on and off ramps. A major advantage of procuring MPLS network service for long haul transport is that you only need to worry about getting your traffic to and from the network. The network operator optimizes performance of the MPLS network to ensure adequate bandwidth with low latency, jitter and packet loss. You need the means to get to and from that network with your traffic intact.

EarthLink Business offers a nationwide access-agnostic MPLS network with Service Level Agreements (SLA) based on Class of Service (CoS). They offer 5 different access technologies based on what makes sense at each business location. Note that you can easily mix and match access methods and still maintain complete CoS right up to your own network edge. Here’s what you have to pick from.

The classic and still most popular access method is T1 lines. They are almost universally available over common twisted pair telco wiring that is already installed to most business locations. T1 lines offer 1.5 Mbps symmetrical bandwidth that can be increased by bonding more T1 lines together. EarthLink boasts 4 hour mean time to repair (MTTR) private T1 lines if there is ever a link problem.

Many companies have looked to DSL as a lower cost alternative to T1. ADSL is an asymmetrical bandwidth service with higher download than upload speeds. Earthlink is the first provider to offer CoS traffic management over DSL, making this access method viable for serious business use.

Ethernet over copper (EoC) and fiber (EoF) is a strong competitor to T1, DS3 and higher speed SONET fiber services. Ethernet is a better match to IP traffic than switched-circuit oriented TDM (Time Division Multiplexing) technologies. Ethernet is highly scalable and lower in cost on an Mbps basis, where available.

Wireless access works for companies with new location that need rapid provisioning and for low cost access where DSL is unavailable. 3G and 4G cellular-based bandwidth is often available in rural areas and offers T1 and better speeds without the landline. Fixed wireless microwave transmission offers higher speeds that can be an effective alternative to fiber.

Another unique service from EarthLink is MPLS IPsec. You may recognize IPsec or IP SECurity as a VPN technology used to make connections over the Internet secure. The security comes from using the 3DES encryption algorithm (168 bit). That’s the finance industry standard for network layer encryption. IPsec allows businesses to procure Internet access from a local provider in outlying areas and connect securely to the corporate MPLS network.

Is MPLS a good fit for your business networking needs? Which access methods are right for your various locations? You can easily find this out with a complementary set of MPLS network and access service quotes to compare with your current WAN solution. You may be surprised by the savings possible.

EarthLink Offers Healthcare IT Resources

Healthcare automation is seen as a major cost reduction opportunity for doctor’s offices, clinics, hospitals and other healthcare facilities. Not all healthcare providers have the IT resources to modernize their operations to take advantage of new technology. They may even find it difficult to meet privacy regulations, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA). This is where a major network services provider like EarthLink Business can fill the void. As an example, check out this video on how EarthLink meets the needs of Monadnock Community Hospital in Peterborough, New Hampshire.



Like many healthcare facilities and other businesses, Monadnock has multiple connectivity requirements. In addition to the primary location with over 700 employees, there are four other satellite locations. They need both voice and data solutions.

In this case, the telephone system is powered by multiple PRI trunk lines, the satellite facilities are linked through an MPLS network and broadband Internet access is provided by a partial DS3 line.

EarthLink has a comprehensive portfolio of services that include basics, such as ISDN PRI telephone trunk lines and Internet access with speeds that range from 1.5 Mbps (T1 line) on up to 100 Mbps. Bonded T1 lines will take you from 1.5 to 12 Mbps. T3/DS3 covers the range of 15 to 45 Mbps and Ethernet offers speeds that range from 3 Mbps on up to 100 Mbps.

MPLS networks are proving ideal for linking multiple business locations. The Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) technology is designed to transport whatever protocol you are using from point to point or in a meshed multipoint arrangement. MPLS networks offer high bandwidth, low latency, and low jitter & packet loss characteristics. Unlike proprietary networks that you construct yourself using dedicated point to point lines, MPLS lets you quickly and easily add locations to your network. Best of all, the cost is considerably more attractive than alternative solutions.

Locations with their own in-house PBX phone systems have traditionally used analog business lines when only a few are needed and ISDN PRI digital trunks for a dozen or more outside lines. ISDN PRI is a cost saver for multiple line phone services and still the mainstay of business telephone systems. A newer technology that is providing a competitive solution is SIP Trunking. This is an IP transport technology that is most often associated with enterprise VoIP telephony. SIP trunks can be used with PBX, IP PBX and hosted PBX. Hosted solutions are becoming more popular because the burden of maintaining the switching hardware is handled by the service provider. As a user, you pay the by seat per month for your usage. You can also quickly and easily add phones to your system. Some providers even include new phones with their service plans.

Does your hospital, medical center, doctor’s office or other business have a need for IT services? Would you be interested in looking at competitive quotes or alternative solutions, included cloud hosted solutions? Get network service options and pricing now, for large, medium and small operations.

EarthLink Means Business With 10 GigE Fiber

Most of us remember EarthLink from land rush days of the Internet when anyone and everyone just had to get on the net now, and dial-up 56K service was the best you could get. EarthLink is still a viable ISP for consumers with both dial-up and broadband access available. But there’s another side to this famous company. EarthLink Business is a facilities-based competitive carrier serving everything from SMB to enterprise needs with over 28,000 miles of fiber installed and more in the works. They’re in the process of installing two new 10 Gigabit Ethernet fiber rings in Ohio and Eastern Pennsylvania. There’s also a new high speed fiber route going in between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

What’s with all the new high-bandwidth construction by EarthLink and others? In case you haven’t heard, business is automating like crazy and heading to the cloud. The enduring slowdown in economic expansion has given corporations a chance to re-examine their operations and re-engineer for what they’ll need in the future. One thing they’ve found is that office automation can be as big an enabler of employee productivity as the factory automation of decades past. That means more computers, more processing and more communication between business sites, vendors, customers and remote employees. Any business that has outsourced overseas has found that a key to making this work efficiently is to tie together the far flung operations as if they were right next door. You can’t do that physically, of course, but you can do it virtually if you have the right networking.

The cloud is also seen as a game changer in a world where it’s hard to predict what resources you’ll need next season or even next month. Traditional in-house data center construction is a capital and time intensive approach. If what you are doing will run just as well in a remote data center, you gain the advantages of avoiding capital investments and buying what you need by the moment with the knowledge that additional resources are always available when you need to scale up. Scaling up is the expected path as a company grows over the years. Now you have the option to scale up and scale down as business fluctuates so you never have idle resources running up expenses.

The one thing that process automation, outsourcing and cloud operations have in common is that they are bandwidth intensive. That bandwidth was fairly easy to come by when everything was on your local network. Now you need the same big conduit going between cities, across the country and perhaps overseas.

SONET is the proven core network technology for fiber optic WAN networks. You can certainly run legacy OC3, OC12 and OC 48 fiber optic connections for your business connectivity. But today it’s Ethernet services that are hot. No problem. Ethernet runs over SONET just fine. In fact, many advertised Ethernet fiber optic networks are really running SONET at their core. OC-192 is a good match for 10 Gigabit Ethernet, with a special WAN-PHY protocol designed especially to transport 10 GigE on a OC-192 optical carrier.

EarthLink is expanding their nationwide fiber network and their suite of business telecom services that include MPLS networking, full and fractional DS3, EVDO 3G wireless, SIP trunking and Metro Fiber Ethernet. They added three new data centers in Rochester, NY, Marlborough, MA and Columbia, SC with 10 Gigabit fiber rings connecting each location to the network backbone. Such high bandwidth connections allows them to offer real time data replication and cloud services to interested companies.

Is your business re-engineering for higher productivity and more agile operations? If so, you may benefit from some of the new cloud services and high bandwidth network connections that have become recently available. Even your current operations can cut costs while retaining the same performance with competitive telecom services.