Back talk - Company Business and Marketing - Interview

Telecommunications, April, 2001 by Sean Buckley

A Conversation with Steve Blumenthal of Genuity

As Genuity's senior vice president of engineering and technology. Steve Blumenthal is responsible for network architecture, network engineering and planning and product and service engineering. He has been with Genuity since 1977 when it was known as BBN. Blumenthal led the design and construction of GTE's 10 Gbps Global Network Infrastructure (GNI), a worldwide fiber-optic network supporting advanced Internet. Web hosting and security services. He holds a master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT.

Q Could you describe Genuity's network infrastructure?

A We have a nationwide, 17,500-mile 10-Gbps network, acquired a few years ago when we jointed GTE. Initially, the network was SONET-based, but we are moving to pure DWDM. Genuity owns most of the network, with a few leased circuits and CO space. As BBN, we had a leased network, but when we joined GTE they acquired the dark fiber and we began building out our own POPs and lighting up our own capacity.

Q Whose gear is Genuity using in the fiber backbone?

A Initially, we were using Nortel's SONET and 16-wavelenth OPTera DWDM (optical-electrical-optical) regeneration every 400 km. Last year, we began using a 50-wavelength per-fiber system from Qtera (acquired by Nortel) that can go 2500 km without OEO regeneration. Last fall, we conducted a field trial of the Qtera system where we ran an all-optical, ultralong-haul, 10-Gbps system over 1500 km between Atlanta, Ga., and Washington, D.C. At that time, we also began testing Juniper's M-160 router--the first time we put IP directly over DWDM. Since then, we have been rolling out Qtera's gear across our network. Right now, the network is a mixture of Nortel's OPTera and Qtera equipment, but the majority of the routes will be qtera.

Q You have been implementing Cisco routers in the IP backbone. Are you using any other vendor's equipment?

A We have used Cisco routers for our IP backbone service almost exclusively until fairly recently. When we upgraded our network to OC-192, we ended up selecting Juniper's M-160 for our backbone because we felt Cisco wasn't quite ready. In the VoIP network backbone, we are using Cisco IP/PSTN gateways and gatekeepers for PSTN-to-IP network interconnections in several IATAs. We bring in local circuits from telephone numbers we want to connect into the IP/PSTN gateways for network-wide address look-up to translate Internet addresses to phone numbers.

Q How do you effectively manage all of these disparate layers?

A With a number of 10-Gbps links across the country, we've had to build several mixed layers of SONET and DWDM for intercity capacity. In major POPs like New York, Chicago or Washington, many layers of 10-Gbps capacity are going off on fibers in several directions. A large amount of local-provider capacity was coming into our POPs, resulting in a lot of outbound capacity and demultiplexing equipment that took up much space and energy. At first we considered building a SONET ring in the POP, but realized it would not scale. Instead, we began using Ciena's Core Director, which directly multiplexes a LEC's optical connections down to the individual circuit with connections to all network layers. Then we added Redback's Smart Edge for lower-speed connections such as dial-up modern service, DSL aggregation, IP customer routers and ATM switches, which enables circuit provisioning to be done on the fly with a software commend.

Q Speaking of on-the-fly provisioning how far is Genuity from a self-provisioned, customer-driven network?

A Our network technology is beginning to support self-provisioning, but to make it fly you need to have proper OSS and provisioning systems in place. We already offer some on-line capabilities where customers can log on to a Web site to obtain Internet connection statistics. On our security service platform, customers can establish VPN firewalls, add individual users and specify self-provisioning. The next step 1 see is enabling them to do bandwidth provisioning.

Q What is your view on the metro technology explosion?

A I can't go into too many details because we are still in the process of soliciting REPs (requests for proposals) from a number of new metro vendors. We basically lumped the metro technology into two categories: DWDM equipment vendors and IAD vendors.

We are going to build out our own metro networks by acquiring dark fiber from Metromedia Fiber Network through a relationship we have with Verizon. Currently, we have one operational metro network in northern Virginia that connects to one of our larger customer's data centers as well as several others under construction.

Q What role will the Yipes partnership play in the metro network?

A We will use Yipes as an extension of our network to get to additional buildings and customers and to reach into cities where we don't have significant buildouts. Yipes will extend our Internet access service through its Gigabit Ethernet network, and we will provide Internet connectivity into its network. Ypes will become our local network link in some cities, and we will provide the Internet backbone and use Yipes to provide Gigabit Ethernet service to our customers.