Comcast is using equipment from Cisco Systems, Juniper Networks and Ciena for its recently introduced Metro Ethernet service aimed at midsize businesses and wireless backhaul in 20 U.S. markets.
The Comcast Metro Ethernet services, launched last month, are targeted at businesses with 20 to 500 employees. The services are positioned as replacements for legacy telco technologies such as T-1 lines, Frame Relay and ATM.
To offer the service, the MSO has deployed the Cisco Aggregation Services Router 9000 Series (ASR 9000), Juniper's T Series Core Routers, MX Series Universal Edge Routers and EX Series Ethernet Switches, as well as Ciena's LE-311v, which is part of a family of service delivery and aggregation platforms.
Ciena is providing the customer-premises equipment, which is on-site at the customer for business services or at a cell tower site for backhaul. That gear then connects to either Cisco or Juniper gear in the network, which provides aggregation and switching.
"Cisco is helping us address the needs of mid-sized businesses looking for flexible, scalable and reliable bandwidth options to meet the increasing demand for cloud, business continuity and other high-bandwidth applications," Comcast Business Services senior vice president of product management and strategy Kevin O'Toole said in a statement.
In separate statements, O'Toole said Juniper "is helping us deliver a reliable and cost-effective metro data service for our midsized customers, so that they can better manage their businesses as applications and traffic needs continue to grow," while "Ciena provides flexible and reliable Ethernet access platforms so we can deploy quickly in a wide range of environments, whether a wiring closet in an office building, an outside wall of a school or at a cell site."
Comcast Metro Ethernet provides four distinct Ethernet services: point-to-point, point-to-multipoint, multipoint-to-multipoint and dedicated Internet access. Comcast offers the services with bandwidth from 1 Mbps up to 10 Gbps and can be scaled in increments of 1 Mbps, 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps or 1 Gbps.
Comcast's Metro Ethernet services currently are available in: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Harrisburg, Pa., Hartford, Conn., Houston, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Fla., Miami, Nashville, Tenn., Oakland, Calif., Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Portland, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, Washington D.C., western New England and the State of New Jersey. Additional markets will be launched on an ongoing basis.
Comcast plans to expand Metro Ethernet services into new markets in the months ahead.
