Using Global Crossing EthersphereTM and other transport services, Global Crossing has provided core network connectivity from Entanet’s central network nodes to British Telecom (BT) Wholesale Broadband Connect (WBC) aggregation points in London and around the U.K. Ethersphere provides true utility grade service and is ideal as a transport for private enterprise customer Internet Protocol (IP) networks, or as complete fabric for an ISP's national Ethernet services.
In 2007, Entanet was selected to be the only non-BT company to participate in the BT 21st Century Network (21CN) WBC trial, with Global Crossing providing connectivity.
Following the success of the pilot in Birmingham and Wolverhampton, the roll-out to the remaining WBC aggregation points, which began earlier this year, is now almost complete.
“In selecting connectivity partners, Global Crossing stood out for a number of reasons in what was a highly competitive bidding process,” confirmed Entanet’s chief technical officer, Steve Lalonde. “Global Crossing was extremely cost-competitive, has excellent project management skills and the strength of its network has helped us expand our high-speed broadband and stronger converged voice and data offerings to 99 percent of the UK population.
“In addition, we already had a long-standing, successful relationship based on a high-level Service Level Agreement, which gave us complete confidence in Global Crossing’s ability to consistently deliver superior quality network support.”
“Today’s businesses demand more robust and resilient connectivity, as they face increasing communications challenges in linking with a greater number of offices and remote workers, as well as sharing greater volumes of IP data and voice traffic,” said Anthony Christie, Global Crossing’s managing director, EMEA. “Like us, Entanet has a well-deserved reputation for driving leading-edge technology solutions that directly meet today’s customer needs. As a result of this strategic partnership, ISPs and resellers can secure competitive advantage by providing a broader range of faster, more stable and cost-effective connectivity solutions.”
Entanet has been proactively involved in the development of 21CN and worked with Global Crossing from an early stage. “In what is a strategically important move for the company, we have made a significant investment in our own network, allowing us to take WBC,” said Lalonde. “As part of our 21CN infrastructure development, a key goal was to improve delivery, enabling channel customers to offer more stable and potentially faster ADSL2+ broadband, as well as broader Quality of Service options for those end-users looking to prioritise traffic.”