Fiber Optic Connections from USA to Paris, France

By: John Shepler

For many companies, business is a global effort. Some simply import and export. Others have offices and factories worldwide. All need connectivity from their business locations in the United States to other locations thousands of miles away. More importantly, they need the right type of connectivity.

Direct Internet Access (DIA) will get the job done for many smaller organizations that simply need email, file transfers and web access. More sophisticated operations want to link their local area networks in each location as if they were one giant LAN.

Others need low latency to support two-way video conferencing, VoIP telephony, financial trading, cloud access and other real-time delay sensitive applications.

Ethernet over Fiber and MPLS networks are the first choice of most companies with important electronic business processes in the US. But, what is possible if you need international access, such as to the European continent?

Zayo has been a leader in both domestic and international high performance bandwidth solutions. They operate an extensive fiber optic network nationwide. Many customers use the Zayo network to link their various operations from state to state. What you may not realize is that Zayo also connects transatlantically to an expanding fiber network that also covers Europe.

You can think of the Zayo long haul European fiber network as a loop that interconnects London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris. From there you can get to just about any location on the Continent via Zayo or other metro and WAN connections.

What’s new is a greatly expanded presence in Paris, France. Zayo is becoming a major network provider in the Paris metro area by acquisition of the French infrastructure company, Neo Telecoms.

What resources is Zayo adding to its international network assets? First, an already built-out fiber plant consisting of 350 metro route miles in Paris. That fiber connects more than 500 on-net buildings plus 9 colocation centers across France. Zayo will now have an additional 36,000 square feed of data center space serving France.

Neo Telecom created Paris’ first fiber optic MAN (Metropolitan Area Network) to support business in the city. Their services include dark fiber, IP, Ethernet, wavelength and colo. More than 600 enterprise customers and other carriers are already on the network. They are primarily involved in the financial, tech, media and telecom sectors.

Zayo itself operates 77,000 fiber route files in the US and Europe plus 27 carrier-neutral colocation facilities in the United States.

Does your company do business in both France and America? If so, you now have a single provider in Zayo who can meet your domestic and international network connectivity needs. You may be especially interested in Gigabit Ethernet and MPLS IP network services that can transparently link your LAN’s worldwide and to collocated data centers and cloud services.

Other services of interest include 25,000 miles worth of dark fiber, wavelengths with up to 100 Gbps bandwidth in metro and intercity links, traditional SONET fiber from DS3 to OC192 for point to point, hub/tail and dedicated rings, mobile infrastructure and Tier 1 IP network peering.

Now would be a good time to investigate the ever expanding domestic and international colocation and interconnection services available from Zayo and other high performance service providers. Call toll free (888)-848-8749, or submit an online inquiry anytime.


Note: Map of France courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

DIA and VPN For Europe

Level 3 Communications, a Tier 1 Internet networking services company with a global fiber optic footprint, is bringing its Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) and Virtual Private Network (VPN) services portfolio to European markets, including France, Germany and the United Kingdom. As the worldwide business climate improves, international connectivity will become more and more important for business success in a global marketplace.

Major multinational corporations and larger Internet Service Providers may operate their own Autonomous System (AS) networks that give them the ability to peer with other networks and purchase IP transit services to get to the Internet backbone. But many businesses don’t have or want the level of investment that it takes to operate an International private network. These companies still need high quality, reliable Internet access for e-commerce, communication with their customers, and private connections between far-flung company locations.

Dedicated Internet Access is the service of choice for most business users. What dedicated means is that you have exclusive use of the bandwidth that you purchase to connect to the Internet. But isn’t that always the case? Not really. Residential users and smaller businesses get by with shared bandwidth arrangements such as DSL, Cable broadband, two-way high speed satellite Internet, and 3G or 4G wireless.

The motivation behind bandwidth sharing is that costs are shared as well. The cost of shared bandwidth broadband services is usually well below equivalent speed dedicated bandwidth services. The price you pay is acceptance of not having a guaranteed bandwidth. Indeed, the bandwidth at any given time is a function of how many other users are sharing the service and what they are doing. Just a few people download huge software, database or video files can bring a speedy line to a crawl.

You don’t experience this with Dedicated Internet Access. You have the full T1 line speed of 1.5 Mbps or E1 line speed of 2.0 Mbps available in both upload and download directions at all times. Ethernet access connections are becoming popular as replacements for legacy T1/E1 lines. Ethernet is highly scalable from 1 Mbps on up to 10 Gbps. The lower line speeds can be provisioned over twisted pair copper, while higher speeds require fiber optic connections.

The VPN or Virtual Private Network is a way to take advantage of the universal reach of the Internet while adding a layer of security to protect your data during the time it is traversing the Internet.

Many companies have private point to point connections to securely link multiple business locations within a metropolitan areas or in nearby states. International private lines are also available, but they are pretty expensive for smaller companies to connect with sales offices overseas.

The Virtual Private Network makes it possible for businesses of all sizes to interconnect their domestic or global facilities. Another popular use for VPNs is to provide access to company networks for employees working from home or on the road. Without VPN capability, the organization would have to install a dedicated line between the corporate data center and they employee’s home at considerable cost.

The way a VPN works is that it encrypts the data packets so that they can’t be decoded by anyone who happens to gain access to them along the way. The process is said to create a “tunnel” through the Internet. There a two popular ways to do this. One is IPSec, which requires special client software at each end to perform the encryption and decryption of the data. Another approach is SSL or Secure Socket Layer. This technique requires only a standard Web browser for access. It uses the same encryption employed by ecommerce sites so that visitors can make online purchases securely.

Do you have need for Dedicated Internet Access or Virtual Private Network service to support your business or organization? If so, get prices and availability for DIA and VPN services to meet your requirements.



Note: Physical map of Europe courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

More Ultra Low Latency Bandwidth For Europe

If you’ve harbored any hope that the speed of business would slow down to a leisurely pace, consider one of the hottest new technology offerings. It’s the ultra low latency WAN network connection. If you are involved in the financial services industry, you need to keep a keen eye on what your competitors are implementing in the way of higher bandwidth/lower latency connections. If you are involved in any other business field, expect that latency will be important to your business sometime soon.

Level 3 Communications is a leader in the field of low latency transport services. Once of their niche services is fiber optic lines optimized to reduce latency between financial centers. They’ve just added London to Madrid and Frankfort to Madrid routes with circuit speeds up to 10 Gbps. These join the existing routes of Chicago to Washington DC, Chicago to New York, New York to London, and London to Frankfurt. The newly added European connections will improve latency on the Madrid to New York and Madrid to Chicago routes also.

Why is low latency such a hot topic as opposed to, say, bandwidth? Actually both latency and bandwidth are important characteristics of long haul fiber optic networks. What’s given latency the spotlight in recent years is the rise of high speed financial trading. This is a process where computers generate market trades far faster than humans are capable of. With thousands of trades executing in milliseconds, even very small moves in a market can result in huge profits or losses. If your trading platform is running even a fraction of a second behind your competitor’s, you could be on the losing end of those trades.

Latency can be minimized, but not eliminated. That’s because latency is nothing more than the length of time that elapses between when a signal is sent and when it is received. The fastest that an optical or electrical signal can propagate is set by the speed of light at 186,000 miles per second or 300,000 kilometers per second. If two locations are separated by 186 miles, you’ll never get below 1 millisecond of latency. A 1,860 mile route can do no better than 10 milliseconds. However, it can be much, much worse.

What sort of characteristics can slow down a speeding laser pulse? The mere fact that the data modulated light beam is traveling through a glass fiber rather than the vacuum of space will slow it down. According to Level 3, the propagation delay in optical networks is approximately 4.9 microseconds per kilometer. In free space the delay would be about 3.3 microseconds. That 4.9 microseconds can be degraded further by electronics that can’t keep up with the speed of the traffic. In other words, any bandwidth limitation will manifest itself as an additional delay as packets queue up in a buffer chip. Even with the fastest electronics, fiber routes must be as straight as possible. Any meandering through the countryside or to pick up other cities adds fiber length and, thus, latency.

Global trading has been increasing in volume at the rate of 30 to 50% annually. It is expected that automated trading will soon account for fully two-thirds of equity trades. Level 3 Communications has carved out a position as a key provider of high bandwidth ultra low latency connections to serve the financial industry. Unprotected Ethernet Private Line services are available at 100 Mbps. Unprotected Wavelength services are available at 1 GigE, 2.5 Gbps, 10 Gbps, 10 GigE and 40 Gbps. They can also provide customized global latency solutions for specific physical routing and diversity.

Are you in need of ultra low latency connections or merely low latency for time sensitive applications? If so, you should check out the availability and pricing of latency sensitive high bandwidth connections for your needs.



Note: Map of Spain graphic courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Foul Odor of Decaying Prepaid Calling Cards

Prepaid calling cards have become popular for international calls, primarily because of their jaw-dropping low advertised rates. They’ve probably caught your eye in the store with their large numbers of very small cents per minute. You may think that you’re going to call around the globe at will for a couple of cents, but you won’t be calling anywhere when the card goes bad.

Goes bad? You mean like milk and fish? Yes, exactly. You see, most prepaid calling cards decay once you start using them.

Think I’m kidding? Get out your magnifying glass and read the small print on the back side of the card. What will you see? Horrible things. Things like connection fees, minimum call times of 10 or 20 minutes, and weekly service fees.

What’s a weekly service fee? Hold your nose. You’re not going to like the smell of this.

A weekly service fee is a charge placed against your card every week after you first start using it. Buy a prepaid calling card and sit on it for a month. You’ll still have all the minutes you paid for. Buy a prepaid calling card and make a short call on it. Then put the card back in your wallet. Make another call a month later and you’ll probably find that some of the minutes have magically disappeared. They’ve been eaten up by those nasty service fees.

That’s the decay I’m taking about. Your minutes start to go bad as soon as you open the card. You don’t even have to stick your nose in the refrigerator and sniff. After a year or so that card that you thought was good for a few cents per minute has just run out of minutes. Add up the minutes that you’ve actually spent on the phone and you’ll find that you’ve paid over a dollar a minute. Not so cheap in the end, is it?

There are two ways you can avoid the stench of calling card decay. First, when you start using one of these cards use it up as fast as you can. Preferably, just make one long call. That way you’ll only pay one connection charge, not be affected by a minimum call charge, and be done before the service fees start.

What’s the other way? Use a service that gives you the cheap international rates that you want from a prepaid calling card, but doesn’t have the small print and seamy side to using it. A good choice is TEL3Advantage.

What’s different about TEL3Advantage is that there are no little paper cards involved. You order the service online for $10, $25 or so. Then you use it from any phone, including your cell phone. The process is similar to using any calling card. You dial a local access number or toll free number to reach TEL3Advantage. Then you dial the international number you want to reach from the US or Canada. You’ll pay the low per minute rate but no connection, hidden or monthly fees. You only need to avoid letting your account go inactive for a year.

But what about the rates? They can’t beat prepaid calling cards, can they?

What if I told you that you could make calls to China for 1 cent per minute right now? Is that cheap enough? OK, that’s a limited time promotion rate. The standard rate is 1.7 cents per minute. I’ll bet that’s cheaper than most of the calling cards you’ll find at the convenience store.

Here’s a bonus. Depending on how much service you choose to sign up for, you can get free bonus minutes added to your account. How many? Oh, how about as many as 900 free minutes to China? Does that sound reasonable?

Of course, there are low rates to all of Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and so on. You don’t need a special card to maximize your savings to any particular part of the World. Just sign up for TEL3Advantage international calling service and the world is at your fingertips. Call all you like. If you run low on minutes, just recharge your account. Best of all, there are no service fees draining your account. Oh, that does smell sweet.

First in Windmills, First in WiMAX

When it comes to the important technologies for the 21st century, where in the world do you look? Is it the United States where the Internet was born? Perhaps China or Japan where just about everything is manufactured? How about India where design expertise is concentrating? No, none of these. Would you believe Holland?

The Dutch have been leaders in business and technology for hundreds of years. Now they're the first in Europe to implement mobile WiMAX as a wireless broadband standard.

Mobile WiMAX, defined by the IEEE 802.16e standard, is an extension of the original fixed wireless 802.16d being promoted as a humongous Wi-Fi hotspot or the answer to 3G cellular backhaul woes. What mobile WiMAX brings to table is the ability to move around with automatic hand-offs between base stations. If this sounds like the way cellular networks work, it is. But instead of CDMA or GSM transmission technology, WiMAX is designed to support IP networking rather than traditional telephone voice channels.

Not that WiMAX can't be used for telephony. In fact, it may be WiMAX that gives mobile VoIP the platform it needs to take off. But voice is seen as the small piece of the pie. What mobile broadband with significant user bandwidth can really do is transport live video feeds and all those video downloads that are clogging-up the Internet delivery networks. WiMAX providers may find themselves as dazed and confused as the cable and telco operators if video goes mobile in a big way.

Who better to solve this dilemma than the Dutch? They were the first to come up with solutions to the rising tide of global warming before anybody paid attention to carbon dioxide. Dutch windmills reclaimed land from the sea for habitation and agriculture using a nationwide system of windmills to pump the lowlands dry.

We used to think that windmills were quaint in the United States. Now we can't put them up fast enough to generate clean power. We're not at the point of having to hold back the ocean yet. But as sea levels rise and beaches start to disappear, we may very well take a serious look at the Zuiderzee and Delta works in the Netherlands.

WiMAX is also coming here in the fall, courtesy of Sprint and Clearwire. As WiMAX builds-out, it will face stiff competition from LTE, a competing technology being deployed by AT&T and Verizon. Whether the competition for users will slow down 4G wireless or only serve to speed up availability of desperately needed bandwidth remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Worldmax will be expanding on its Amsterdam mobile WiMAX network that has already started operation. They eventually expect to deploy about 3,000 sites to cover all of the Netherlands, financial resources permitting. Watching how the service plays out will be a good leading indicator of how mobile WiMAX networks will actually be used once they are universally available.