Getting Network Connections Into Europe

While many companies need only domestic WAN connections to run their businesses, an increasing number need links to other parts of the world. European markets are especially important for financial trading and sales & support within the EU. The question is how domestic US organizations get connected into Europe and how they do that cost effectively.

The good news is that there are a number of carriers that span the Atlantic and offer connectivity into major European cities. Some American-based carriers have arrangements to hand off traffic to data centers in Europe. AboveNet recently announced just such an arrangement with ancotel GmbH of Frankfurt, Germany.

Hooking up with ancotel’s Kleyer 90 data center gives AboveNet access to more than 430 service providers who represent 63 countries. These include bandwidth services, VoIP providers, hosting companies, content delivery networks and cloud networking. About 75% of the traffic that goes in and out of the Frankfurt data center is routed to destinations outside of Germany.

In addition, Frankfurt itself is a major financial hub for Europe. AboveNet specializes in low latency connections that support high speed trading. They offer a Gigabit Ethernet service between New York and London with the extreme low-latency needed for algorithmic trading and the secure completion of financial and banking transactions. AboveNet’s low-latency transatlantic service reaches the key financial locations in London including, Slough, The City and Docklands. In the New York Metro area, they connect you with Manhattan and New Jersey, including Newark, Weehawken, Secaucus, Carteret and Clifton. Metro access under 1 msec to hundreds of buildings in the New York and London metro markets.

Another carrier with a global reach is Level 3 Communications. They have multiple fiber optic connections from the New York metropolitan area cross the Atlantic and landing in England, France, Ireland, Denmark and the Netherlands. From there, fiber networks connect to Germany, Spain, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Finland and other European destinations. They have an extensive network covering North America, so that your traffic is on-net even if you aren’t located on the East Coast.

Global Telecom and Technology also has extensive network connectivity in the United States and Europe. They have access to over 100,000 point of presence (POPs) worldwide and experience with installing networks in over 80 countries. GTT offers both international WAN connectivity and International Dedicated Internet Access (DIA).

What kind of international connectivity can you expect to find? The classic solution is a point to point telecom connection running over fiber optic undersea cable. At the low end are T1 lines in the United States and E1 lines in Europe. These run at 1.5 Mbps and 2 Mbps respectively. Faster services are the SONET/SDH fiber optic connections from OC-3 at 155 Mbps on up to OC-192 at 10 Gbps and perhaps OC-768 at 40 Gbps. Network cores are currently being upgraded to 100 Gbps. An alternative service is Carrier Ethernet at 10 Mbps on up to 10 Gbps. Ethernet can be configured as a point to point dedicated line or a point to multipoint connection to link multiple locations.

MPLS networks are becoming increasingly popular for international network connections. You can interconnect all your domestic business locations with a mesh network connection running over MPLS. That MPLS network can also include locations in Europe or elsewhere across the globe. What MPLS offers is high performance, security and lower costs than multiple point to point line connections.

Does your business need access to Europe to include sales, distribution or manufacturing? Do you perhaps have special requirements such as high bandwidth or ultra low latency for financial services? If so, there are telecom services available to meet your needs. In many cases, you can get multiple competitive bids for international network connections and choose which carrier to do business with.

Smoothstone’s Converged IP Cloud Expanding To Europe

Smoothstone IP Communications, an innovator in the new field of cloud-based unified communications, is expanding its service portfolio to include European locations. Could this be the start of a cloud that covers the Earth?

You bet it is. Thanks to international MPLS connectivity, it is now feasible to port any IP service to anywhere on Earth. That’s the beauty of MPLS networks. They take whatever you’ve got and transport it anywhere users can connect to the network.

Well, it’s not quite that simple. There’s a matter of scaling involved. Servers that easily handle the load for a limited universe of users in a regional area can become quickly overloaded when a tsunami of new users joins the network from a global footprint. Likewise, the core network has to have the bandwidth needed to handle the increased traffic without degrading latency, jitter and packet loss characteristics.

Smoothstone has addressed these issues, partially by expanding their cloud-based applications platform into several European data centers. That removes a potential bottleneck that could form if all packets needed to be processed through a single U.S. data center. It also makes call termination to off-net European phones easier and less costly.

One of the advantages that Smoothstone touts for moving enterprise voice services to their IP cloud is that internal phone calls stay on the network even when those calls are transatlantic to the UK, France, Germany or Switzerland. It’s only when calls need to be terminated to the PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) that connection costs are incurred. The more local the call termination, the cheaper it is. That argues for geographically diverse data centers and central office equipment to support telephony in the cloud.

What is also significant is that Smoothstone is not merely another VoIP service provider. The heart of their competitive portfolio is unified IP communications services. That means converged voice and data services to gain the cost advantages that come from deploying one network among business locations rather that separate telephone and data networks. Convergence can be a tricky proposition for time sensitive applications like network voice. If not done properly, VoIP calls can degrade into clipped and garbled conversations. Calls can even be dropped in extreme cases.

MPLS networking is especially suited to supporting converged voice and data. Not only are multiple protocols supported, but these privately owned and operated networks are carefully managed to ensure Quality of Service (QoS) at all times. For companies that want to unify their communications among multiple locations, it’s hard to argue against a solid MPLS core network. Now smoothstone is taking a leadership position to expand the very same converged services to include European cities. By the end of 2010, they expect to be providing applications and services across Europe.

Is your company still suffering from last century’s networking solutions? Have you been stymied by the process of creating unified communications that delivers the quality of service you require? What you need is the right provider with assets and resources to deliver the right solution for your size of operation and be able to seamlessly scale up as your business level increases. See how Smoothstone and other cloud networking services can provide the connectivity you need at a cost that makes sense.

Add International Calling To Your Cell Phone

The reality of telephone conversations today is that at least one of the phones is a mobile. Yet, many US cell phone plans limit you to domestic USA calls. Those that let you call out of the country can make you sorry you did when the bill arrives. Doesn’t anyone offer a way to call Mexico, Europe, China or even Canada at a decent rate?

There is such a deal and you’ll love it. What you need is a special add-on plan to the service you have now. There is no need and, frankly, no advantage to switching carriers mid-plan. Instead, you keep your current US calling plan and add an international calling service to it. It’s fast, it’s easy and, best of all, it’s cheap.

The service I’m talking about is TEL3Advantage
. What kind of rates are we talking about? Right now, TEL3Advantage is offering discounted international rates that include calls to China for 1 cent per minute, Berlin Germany for 1.4 cents per minute and calls to Canada for 0.9 cents per minute. You saw that right. You can call numbers in Canada for less than a penny a minute. I’ll bet you can’t do that on your landline!

Actually, now you can. The same TEL3Advantage account that works on your cell phone also works on your home phone or your office phone. You can use it on any private touch-tone phone.

OK, now back to those incredibly low rates. They’re for real as part of a special 30 day discount. After that they go up to the regular rates that aren’t much higher. China, for instance, is 1.32 cents per minute instead of an even 1 cent. Calls to Canada cost 1.6 cents per minute. Calls to Berlin Germany are 2 cents per minute for the regular rate. Bet you still can’t beat these rates on your regular landline service. Calls to other locations worldwide are also available at eye-popping low rates.

So how does this work? You sign up for TEL3Advantage with a valid credit card or PayPal account. You order a package of minutes for $10, $25, $50 or $100. What you are doing is pre-paying for your international calls. There’s an extra bonus involved. You get extra free minutes with all but the $10 package. How about 900 free minutes to China on sign-up with the $100 plan. Astounding, but true.

Now you are ready to place your call. Simply dial the local access number for the TEL3Advantage service on any phone you have registered. When the service answers, you dial the international number you want to call. Your call goes through just like on any other phone and you enjoy a nice long conversation. At these rates, it can really be a long conversation. When you run low on minutes, the system will recharge you so won’t be left hanging without service like happens on those prepaid calling cards.

Do you have a smartphone? Your life gets even easier when you download a TEL3 app. It is smart enough to know all the local access numbers, so you can just place your international call with no fuss whatsoever.

Thousands of satisfied customers love this service, and why wouldn’t they? There are no monthly fees or taxes, no contracts, no expiration and no obligation. Just fast and easy access combined with extraordinarily low calling rates. Does this sound like a service that will work for you? If so, learn more, take advantage of the introductory specials, note the 30 day satisfaction guarantee and order your TEL3Advantage service now.