- Global Capacity’s proprietary tools and intellectual property – the core of the company’s business model – are significantly strengthened by VDUL’s software and intellectual property

- Global Capacity’s strategic sourcing business will immediately benefit from the strong base of recurring revenue customers that VDUL contributes

- Global Capacity’s Software as a Service (SaaS) business will add VDUL’s software capabilities and customers, adding scale and revenue to the company’s base of predictable revenue

"We are extremely thankful to our banker, Capstone Investments, and to all of our investors who helped us secure the financing for this acquisition. In this extraordinarily challenging credit market, it would have been impossible to get this transaction closed without their perseverance and commitment. Their support is a strong endorsement of the unique value we have in the market, and this transaction is a testament to their professionalism," says Patrick Shutt, Chief Executives Officer of Global Capacity.

Global Capacity helps companies manage the cost and complexity associated with access networks globally. At the core of Global Capacity’s logistics business is a robust database of global supply and pricing data, coupled with systems and tools that leverage that data to design, price, and optimize access networks. Global Capacity’s logistics business model leverages this asset across multiple products (Software as a Service, strategic sourcing, optimization) while complementing it with additional capabilities (engineering services, remote management services) to provide a set of solutions that address the entire supply chain for global access networks.

The completion of the funding for the acquisition provides Global Capacity with the opportunity to recap performance metrics of VDUL, as well as outline some of the financial metrics of the combined companies going forward. VDUL generated trailing twelve-month revenues of approximately $50 million, with gross margins of 25%, and adjusted EBITDA of $3 million for that period. Consolidated annualized predictable revenues for the combined companies should total roughly $72 million on a forward twelve-month basis. Global Capacity expects that execution of its integration plan will increase adjusted EBITDA to a twelve-month range of $10 to $12 million for the predictable revenue business. The Company also expects non-predictable revenue from its optimization business to grow to 30% of total annualized revenue.

"In the current economic climate, reducing network costs is critically important for our clients. The addition of VDUL strengthens our product portfolio and further extends our ability to help clients drive cost out of their network spend," said Mr. Shutt. "In addition, our strengthened base of predictable revenue provides us with a strong platform for growth, and gives us the ability to focus on realizing the tremendous upside potential of our non-recurring optimization solutions business."

The contract to acquire VDUL was first announced November 14, and was subject to review by Federal regulatory authorities. With that special temporary authority for Global Capacity to assume control of VDUL now obtained, Global Capacity will immediately execute a 120-day integration plan designed to maximize the synergies between the companies, optimize the sourcing contracts that the acquisition contributes, and align the combined senior management team. That 120-day integration period will also result in the filing of the retrospective financial statements for VDUL, as required by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The VX and Tenor lines of MultiPath VoIP switches and gateways allow customers to consolidate their existing messaging infrastructure – including voice mail, email servers and fax servers – into one new system. This simplifies the customer’s path to unified communications, greatly simplifies the user experience and management of the messaging infrastructure, and results in significant cost savings.

The VX and Tenor line of products feature "any to any" switching, not traditionally found in VoIP gateways, providing intelligent connectivity of TDM and SIP-based equipment with minimal changes to the existing network, thereby simplifying the deployment of Microsoft unified communications technologies into existing voice and PBX environments, according to Quintum execs.

"We are very pleased to have NET Quintum achieve Exchange Unified Messaging certification as part of our Unified Communications Open Interoperability Program," says Ankur Kothari, Technical Product Manager, Microsoft Exchange Unified Messaging. "Both the VX and Tenor product lines moved smoothly through the process and we are pleased about their support of Microsoft unified communications technologies."

"As a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, we have developed an extensive knowledge base to support Microsoft’s unified communications technologies," says Chuck Rutledge, Vice President of Marketing for NET. "The certification for Exchange Unified Messaging gives our customers and partners’ confidence that the VX and Tenor product lines provide a seamless solution for both Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007."

The 4102 is a security-ready VoIP gateway designed to enable service providers and enterprise networks to connect SOHOs, remote workers and branch offices to an IP network, connecting up to two analog phones and/or faxes, as well as a PC or a home router to a broadband modem.

"The power and performance of the Mediatrix 4102 enable this newest member of the 4100 Series family of enterprise gateway solutions to deliver the right feature set for the growing remote office market," says Marc Skinner, PLM Director at Mediatrix. "We are listening to our enterprise and service provider customers' needs and equipping them with sophisticated VoIP gateway solutions that will allow them to expand their application offerings and meet the growing demands of today's workforce."

IntelePeer's technology and services are used by software vendors, carriers and online businesses to easily deliver cost-effective voice and multimedia capabilities from within an enterprise application or Web workflow to any phone or network-connected device, according to the company. Voice 2.0 integrates multiple forms of media (voice, data and video) into enterprise applications and Web workflows to provide a highly personalized and powerful user experience, according to Bill Harding, managing director, VantagePoint Venture Partners and new member of the IntelePeer board of directors.

"IntelePeer is uniquely positioned with its game-changing strategy to address the need to reduce operational costs with an innovative hosted Voice 2.0 applications platform and carrier-class voice peering infrastructure," says Harding. "The company’s strong leadership team has achieved rapid and continuous revenue growth each quarter and has attained positive cash flow ahead of plan, a remarkable achievement in this financial environment."

Network applications include next gen message management, call termination to announcement, podcast delivery, on-demand conference, and RSS feed translation. Lifestyle applications include advanced call waiting, call delivery manager, parental control, and class 5 feature management. Web self-care allows customers to shop, buy and manage any product or service that the communications provider makes available – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, according to the company. The product catalog manages product offerings exposed to clients, provides a central reference to product information, and supplies product information/definition to correlate and map to other external solutions. The product workbench allows rapid creation and deployment of new products and services as well as the ability to build trial applications allowing subscribers to test and buy, according to the company.

ESP’s suite of software applications also offers communications providers an IMS platform. Traditionally, the feasibility of IMS has been a challenge in terms of investment and maintenance for small-to-medium service providers. With ESP, an IMS strategy is feasible for service providers of any size, say company execs. ESP is essentially IMS in a box. ESP accommodates digital transactions, including events and content, while enabling the digital storefront. Communications providers can monetize current assets and capabilities within their infrastructure. In addition to a new revenue source, communications providers will minimize IT and operational costs through automation and eliminating application integration costs.

"Communications providers want to be able to quickly add new features and applications that take advantage of new technologies," says Jim Odom, CEO and President of Martin Group. "We recognize the need to enhance traditional voice, video and internet services with new applications creating new revenue streams. With ESP, communications providers will realize revenue faster, improve efficiency, and improve customer satisfaction."

Odom adds that ESP’s open architecture enables Martin Group to rapidly develop new applications ensuring investment protection, competitive differentiation, and additional revenue streams for communications providers. ESP is integrated with Martin Group’s Integrated BSS/OSS Suite, OMNIA™ and OASIS. Compatibility with third party systems is possible with Martin Group’s open billing interface and it’s published API’s.

"Network expansion into these critical markets was of prime importance for us," said John P. Dowd, vice president of business development. "With these extensions, we can now meet our customers’ demand for expanded network reach."

Continuing on FiberNet’s core strategy of interconnecting key carrier hotels, the network nodes for the Chicago and Miami extensions are located at 350 E. Cermack Road in Chicago and 50 N.E. 9th Street in Miami. Each network extension is fully interconnected with all of Fibernet's data centers and colocation facilities, including the 60 Hudson Street meet-me-room in New York.

AT&T execs say the acquisition will give the company an additional 1.1 million wireless customers. The deal expands AT&T’s wireless coverage in largely rural areas of the Midwest and the Southeast, as well as in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

AT&T says the acquisition will improve its wireless service in parts of Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Ohio and Texas. The companies expect the deal to close by the end of 2Q in 2009.

Last week AT&T also announced the acquisition of Wayport, a privately owned provider of wireless Internet hotspots, for $275 million in cash.

The horse race between AT&T and Verizon continues...

Martin had proposed a dramatic update of intercarrier compensation and revision of the USF fund mechanism. But last week, some 100 members of Congress publicly petitioned the FCC to delay the vote so they could study the fine print. And yesterday the other two Democrat and two Republican FCC Commissioners issued a unanimous press release that is essentially a public smackdown of Martin's plan. (We don't see that very often!) Thus, the canceled vote.

The focus of recent discussions about revisions to intercarrier compensation has centered on a plan proposed by AT&T and modifed by Verizon in a public letter to the FCC. The plan would involve a single, unified rate for all terminating services, whether interstate, intrastate or local, of $.0007 per minute (seven hundredths of a cent) -- a dramatic reduction from the current scheme. The move would be phased in over three years and would involve other changes designed to ensure that the lost access revenues would be recovered through other means, primarily an increase in the end user Subscriber Line Charge.

Critics of the plan say that larger carriers like AT&T and Verizon would save a lot of money under the plan while smaller rural carriers would lose revenue. Stay tuned.

"The expansion in these six key U.S. markets is a part of our strategy to expand our leadership position as a global business-to-business provider of telecommunications and information technology services to deliver converged network-centric information and communications technology" said Heike Auerbach, CEO, T-Systems of North America. "We call that ‘Real ICT.’"

T-Systems owns and operates one of the world’s largest MPLS-based telecommunications networks with capabilities in over 50 countries and complements its proprietary network with service providers such as XO to extend its global reach. In addition to its global telecommunications presence, T-Systems also owns and operates over 80 global data centers for its enterprise customers.

T-Systems will use XO Communications to deliver a market-based aggregation solution in these six markets that will expand T-Systems’ presence in the U.S. market, while improving its existing access circuit efficiency to better serve the needs of its global B-to-B client base.

"The ability to bring access services into XO points of presence helps us reach our customer locations more cost effectively and efficiently" said Matt Plessing, head of Telecom Operations at T-Systems North America. "T-Systems is continuously working to enhance the network access requirements of our customers, enabling them to reach new markets and expand their U.S. presence."

Under the terms of the agreement, EMBARQ shareholders will receive 1.37 CenturyTel shares for each share of EMBARQ common stock they own. Based on the closing stock price for CenturyTel on Oct. 24, this consideration would be quivalent to $40.42 of CenturyTel stock for each EMBARQ share, representing a premium to EMBARQ shareholders of approximately 36 percent over EMBBARQ's closing stock price on Oct. 24. The transaction reflects an enterprise value of approximately $11.6 billion, including the assumption of $5.8 billion of EMBARQ's debt. The parties expect the transaction to be accretive to CenturyTel's free cash flow per share in 2010, the first full year following the expected closing.

The transaction combines two leading telcos with a combined operating presence in 33 states with approximately eight million access lines and two million broadband customers. The combined company is expected to have pro forma revenue in excess of $8.8 billion and pro forma EBITDA of approximately $4.2 billion.

Glen F. Post III, CenturyTel's chairman and chief executive officer, says the merger will "accelerate the strategic plans of both companies, diversify revenues and provide us with the expanded networks, expertise and financial resources to build long-term value for shareholders."

Tom Gerke, EMBARQ's chief executive officer added: "In CenturyTel, we have found a terrific strategic partner, one with an outstanding history of providing quality and innovative products and services to its customers across the country. This transaction is expected to deliver immediate value to our shareholders and provide significant growth potential via a combined company that is better positioned to compete and win in an increasingly competitive marketplace. We are looking forward to joining with a partner who shares our commitment to customers, employees and the communities we serve."

"Shareholders and consumers alike should be excited by the potential benefits this combined company will bring to the marketplace," said William A. Owens, current non-executive Chairman of EMBARQ's Board and future non-executive Chairman of the combined company. "This merger will join together two industry leaders in their own right to create a dynamic new competitor in the communications industry."

Cox will utilize the nationwide Sprint network to quickly enter the market in 2009. At the same time, Cox is concurrently building its own 3G wireless network for additional market launches in 2009. Cox will also test 4G technology utilizing LTE (long term evolution). Earlier this year, Cox joined CTIA (the international association for the wireless telecommunications industry), the Rural Cellular Association and CDMA Development Group (CDG).

In recent years, Cox successfully acquired wireless spectrum in Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Auctions. "We've already invested more than $500 million to acquire wireless spectrum and to develop the infrastructure and human resources needed to architect our own advanced wireless service," says Esser. "Our commitment is firm, and the wireless services we deliver will further the Cox experience. As consumers are increasingly adopting a mobile lifestyle, we will continue to deliver in ways that are uniquely Cox -- offering the first truly integrated bundle that is easy-to-use, reliable and supported by the best customer service available."

"Cox understands the importance of leveraging content across the television, computer and mobile device," adds J. Gerry Purdy, Ph.D., vice president & chief analyst, Mobile and Wireless at Frost & Sullivan. "Given its existing business operations, Cox is well positioned to extend its local market assets for wireless and leverage its existing customer relationships in the markets it serves. This strategy is very similar to the company's successful entry into the landline telephone business more than 10 years ago."

Cox research indicates that consumers want a simple and easy-to-use wireless service that will integrate easily with their lifestyle. Management and delivery of converged content is at the core of Cox's wireless strategy. Cox customers will be able to use their mobile phone to access television favorites, program their DVR, access content saved on their home computer and simplify their lives with enhanced voice features.

"We are in the business of making it simpler and easier for people to enjoy communications and entertainment," says Dallas Clement, senior vice president of strategy and product management. "Ten years ago, only Cox, a cable company, had the flexibility to introduce simpler telephone plans to the marketplace. And now, with wireless, we have the flexibility yet again to introduce a simpler and better wireless offer, making it easy for consumers to continue to choose Cox as their trusted provider. It's an exciting future for our customers."

An industry veteran, most of Samohod's 15 years in telecom have been dedicated to supporting the agent channel. Prior to joining TMC, he was agent channel manager at Broadwing Communications where he was one of the core team members that launched a national agent channel. He has held senior posts at Level 3 Communications and Conectiv Communications. Samohod will be supporting agents from his East Coast office in the Philadelphia, Pa. area.

"TMC is committed to providing its talented agents with the support they need to build a profitable revenue stream with us," commented Ron Ireland, president and CFO of TMC. "We’re honored to have the opportunity to include Bill Samohod on our sales team. His strong track record and solid history of accomplishments makes him the perfect fit for this critical role."

"The expansion of our agreement with Excel further demonstrates the value of Global Capacity’s telecom logistics business model in our market," says Patrick Shutt, Chief Executive Officer at Global Capacity. "Our information systems provide much needed transparency to the access network market. By leveraging the breadth of Global Capacity’s services, Excel is able to provide its customers the highest quality communications services at the most competitive price. The nature of the global economy and its fluctuations highlight the reality that companies of all sizes, shapes, and industries need to be alert to opportunities to reduce spend. We can save companies from 10 to 40 percent on telecom costs; a category that is usually in the top 10 expenses for multi-national enterprises and the top three for carriers and integrators."

Adds Jerry Ou, chief operating officer at Excel: "Global Capacity has clearly helped us reduce the costs on our U.S. domestic network, increasing our competitive advantage in the wholesale voice market. The improvement in our network pricing and flexibility in conjunction with the suite of Global Capacity products will further enable us to quickly respond to the changing requirements of our target markets with highly competitive rates."

The service, called Covad Integrated Access service, is delivered over a voice-optimized T1 line and works with customers’ existing phone systems so businesses can leverage their equipment investment while saving money and simplifying operations.

"Covad Integrated Access service has been completely retooled for reliability and flexibility," explains Jake Heinz, vice president and general manager, Covad VoIP. "With Covad Integrated Access service, businesses can start small and add phone lines as they need them. We don’t force them into bundles or service plans designed for much larger companies."

Covad Integrated Access now also utilizes SIP trunking and supports a wide range of IP, digital and analog PBXs.

Pricing starts as low as $435 per month with no installation fees, depending upon contract length and services ordered. Customers can start with as few as four phone lines. New lines can also be added one by one, rather than in the more typical "blocks" offered by many service providers.

Integrated Access service uses Covad’s voice-optimized technology to dynamically allocate bandwidth between voice and data. By always prioritizing voice traffic and automatically allocating all remaining bandwidth to data traffic, it provides maximum call quality and data throughput, according to the company.

Since its acquisition by Platinum Equity, Covad has invested significant time and resources to further enhance the capabilities of its voice-optimized network. "Platinum Equity has made it clear it will support smart investments to ensure Covad can offer its partners and customers the reliability and functionality of an end-to-end carrier-grade network," says Heinz.

According to TNCI, the Agent Equity Plan redefines earning opportunities for the agent community with participating agents afforded the opportunity to earn an equity share of as much as 9x their monthly billing base.

"This service represents an invasive application for VoIP technology and is the first true mobile VoIP plan in the U.S., enabling subscribers to make voice calls over the Internet directly from mobile phones, without the need for a computer, a Wi-Fi 'Hotspot' or any other device," according to Mark Richards, VoX’s Founder and CIO. "In addition, due to our technology’s need for only a data network, this partnership enables us to provide this service with significantly greater cost benefits compared to the industry’s latest offerings, which still require both a data and voice plan. Accordingly, VoX will be operating its new mobile VoIP service over the data network of a leading U.S. wireless service provider, ranked among the top four this year by subscriber count."

"We believe this is the most significant market and revenue breakthrough in our history," said Paul H. Riss, Chief Executive Officer of Pervasip Corp. "This breakthrough contract should provide us with a first-to-market advantage in the vast new arena for mobile VoIP services. The potential for revenue growth is far beyond our current run-rate -- particularly as our proven and tested VoIP technology continues to expand with national and international companies such as UTGI."

According to Ben Piilani, Chief Executive Officer of UTGI, "We have been seeking an innovative and proven wholesale VoIP provider that will complete the final piece of our product concept. The synergy and strategic balance between VoX and UTGI is a natural fit. Our company is well established in developing and implementing new services and technologies. We were careful in our due diligence, testing and selection of wholesale VoIP providers, and it was apparent to me that VoX had the right technology and people to make this initiative a reality. The VoX technology is solid, the back office capabilities are exceptional, provisioning is automated and superior, and the VoX pricing model makes the margins attractive for us."

UTGI's commitment to VoX is a fraction of the number of wholesale lines it will deliver, according to Piilani. "With over 100 distributors already committed to over 500,000 lines in the first year, we could easily exceed 1 million lines in year one, and we are targeting 5 million lines by the end of the second year. With the technology in place and the distribution channel secured, it’s now about execution. We are a stable and profitable private company with no debt, and with VoX as a partner, I’m confident that our marketing effort will be successful. The real beneficiary in this relationship will ultimately be the consumer in terms of savings, quality, features, value and performance."

The Verizon Wholesale Mobility Solutions suite of services is now part of the portfolio of products offered by Verizon Partner Solutions (VPS). The introduction of Verizon Wholesale Mobility Solutions presents VPS wholesale clients with the opportunity to bundle their full-service Verizon wholesale wireline services with wireless voice, text messaging and mobile broadband services to offer their retail end-users a single source for both fixed and mobile voice and broadband services.

"The demand for bundled wireline and wireless services continues to grow across every segment of the communications marketplace," says Michael Millegan, president of Verizon Partner Solutions. "The introduction of Verizon Wholesale Mobility Solutions enables us to offer our traditional wholesale wireline clients with new value-added wireless services to address that demand while, at the same time, expanding their business relationships with Verizon Partner Solutions."

J. Sherman Henderson III, founder, president and chief executive officer of Lightyear Network Solutions LLC – the first VPS client to sign up for Verizon Wholesale Mobility Solutions services for use in serving its retail customers – agrees with that assessment.

"Single-source service bundles mean convenience, simplicity and value to both the business and residential customers that Lightyear Network Solutions serves nationwide," says Henderson. "Our agreement with Verizon Partner Solutions will enable us to deliver those benefits to our customers, backed by the power of the Verizon networks and the attentive customer care of Lightyear."

The Verizon Wholesale Mobility Solutions suite is comprised of two wireless service offerings: Verizon Wholesale Mobile Voice and Verizon Wholesale Mobile Broadband.

Verizon Wholesale Mobile Voice offers wireless calling plans with a choice of designated minutes of use allowances per month. Each plan includes Call Waiting, Call Forwarding, Three-Way Calling, No Answer/Busy Transfer, Caller ID, and Basic Voice Mail at no additional monthly fee. Premium features, like Enhanced Voice Mail, monthly mobile-to-mobile minutes and directory assistance, are each available at an additional monthly charge.

In addition to voice plans, wholesale clients can offer text-messaging plans with a choice of designated message allowances per month to end-users that have also purchased wireless voice service. Optional international messaging and premium messaging packages are each available at an additional monthly charge.

Verizon Wholesale Mobile Broadband offers high-speed wireless Internet access via laptop computers with a choice of designated packet data transport MB allowances per month. This product can be sold as either a stand-alone service or as an addition to a voice calling plan. In addition to wireless network services, Verizon Wholesale Mobility Solutions provides wholesale clients with tools that enable them to become one-stop wireline and wireless services providers.

"We’ve packaged Verizon Wholesale Mobility Solutions to allow our wholesale clients to plug these outstanding wireless services into their existing marketing, sales and customer service operations," explains Millegan. "Our intent is to enable our wholesale clients to get up-and-running as quickly as possible to leverage this exciting new business opportunity with seamless support."

John S. "Josh" Henderson IV, president of Lightyear Wireless and senior vice president of sales and marketing for Lightyear Network Solutions LLC, adds: "Our representatives and agents are very excited at the prospect of offering mobility services to our customers. The Lightyear Wireless product will complement the current stable of wireline products we offer through Verizon Partner Solutions."

Ethernet service OAM, based on the IEEE 802.1ag and ITU-T Y.1731 standards, provides a comprehensive set of features for connectivity fault management (CFM) and performance monitoring. Accedian Networks’ demarcation units now offer all 35 key aspects of service OAM. This allows service providers to transparently deploy OAM at critical management points throughout their networks, including customer and cell sites, aggregation and carrier hand-off points - without upgrading existing infrastructure.

Complying with the latest versions of service OAM standards ensures the highest level of interoperability with OAM-enabled switches and routers. However, unlike most network elements’ software-based implementations, Accedian Networks has tightly coupled its OAM feature set with the demarcation units’ unique, hardware-based packet processing engine, according to the company. This approach brings a necessary level of performance and accuracy to OAM measurements, including the ability to monitor up to 100 services per unit, provide real frame loss in place of estimates, perform high-capacity loopback testing using the standards-based loopback messages, and measure one-way delay and jitter with microsecond resolution – essential to maintaining the performance specified in demanding service level agreements (SLAs).

"Accedian Networks has a history of offering the latest OAM functionality, critical as standards continue to evolve and become central to managing and maintaining carrier-grade Ethernet services," said Patrick Ostiguy, founding President & CEO of Accedian Networks. "We also cover key gaps in the standards by offering functionality impossible to implement in software, such as seamless in-service throughput testing, automated turn-up testing, and advanced Ethernet & IP performance monitoring that cover all aspects of packet performance assurance."

Accedian Networks’ Ethernet Service Assurance Platform (ESAP™) will be demonstrated live at Ethernet EXPO in New York (20-22 Oct.).

With Quintum’s Tenor gateway, Dairylea has been able to successfully deploy Microsoft UC in its existing network and telecom environment – which features a seven-year-old Avaya Definity™ PBX. Microsoft UC users’ IP phones can connect through the Tenor to the PBX, so they can call non-UC users inside and outside the company just as they did before. No modification at all of the PBX was necessary, according to the companies.

This ability to implement Microsoft UC without modification of the PBX was of significant benefit to Dairylea, since such modifications can be extremely costly and time-consuming.

Dairylea’s staff depends heavily on voice communications to effectively serve the 2,400 member farms in its cooperative. Dairylea is deploying Microsoft UC to enhance its voice communications in a number of ways. For example, with Microsoft UC, Dairylea’s staff can use their IP phones to receive calls to their main work numbers at home or at other locations on the company’s virtual private network (VPN). Microsoft UC also provides Dairylea’s staff with presence awareness – which helps eliminate "phone tag."

According to Quintum execs, Dairylea switched to Quintum’s Tenor solution after another VoIP vendor failed to fully support interoperability between Definity and Microsoft UC. Internal caller ID proved to be a particular problem with the other vendor’s hardware and software.

According to Jim Snodgrass, president of Siiker Communications, the consultancy that is managing Dairylea’s Microsoft UC initiative, Quintum provided superior technical support – in addition to offering a more effective hardware solution.

"Quintum was able to deliver in two days what our other vendor was unable to deliver in two weeks," says Snodgrass. "The Tenor DX gateway is an excellent choice for integrating IP convergence technology into legacy analog telephony environments, and Quintum’s staff is highly knowledgeable about the idiosyncrasies of these types of integrations."

XO Communications is deploying Juniper Networks MX960 Ethernet Services Routers in major metropolitan locations nationwide, delivering a three-fold increase in capacity across the edge of the XO IP network. The MX960 platform is one of the largest-capacity Carrier Ethernet platforms available on the market today, with up to 960 gigabits per second (Gbps) of switching and routing capacity, enabling more revenue per platform and providing the scalability to support the growth of the XO network.

The Juniper MX960 platform will be used to support a broad range of XO services, including High Speed IP Transit, IP-VPN and voice over IP (VoIP) services for businesses, large enterprises and wholesale customers. Specifically, the additional capacity will enable XO Communications to continue to meet customer demand for higher speed IP transit services at speeds of 1 Gbps and 10 Gbps, according to the company.

"We’re seeing increasing demand for high-speed IP transit solutions from both large enterprises and wholesale customers to support the growing bandwidth-intensive requirements of their networks and end users," said Randy Nicklas, chief technology officer at XO Communications. "By continually investing in our network, XO can provide the most advanced network infrastructure to support our high-performance IP services, stay ahead of the demand from our customers for more bandwidth, and continue to pursue opportunities that will drive revenue growth on a cost-effective basis."

In the first half of 2008, IP traffic on the XO network grew by nearly 60 percent, driven by enterprise and wholesale customers’ bandwidth demands and utilization of XO High Speed IP Transit services to support the growing bandwidth consumption of their downstream customers from services such as video streaming, voice over IP, gaming, ecommerce, and online file sharing.

The additional capacity expansion follows a major capacity upgrade of XO’s core IP network infrastructure completed earlier this year which more than doubled the capacity of its core nationwide IP network.