Wireless Backhaul

 

“When they found out I was looking for Metro Ethernet termination equipment, they got an Accedian rep on the phone and we started talking about their solution and it really looked like a good fit for what we were trying to solve. They (Accedian) had been at it for quite some time, deploying solutions for about four years or so.”

 

Vermeer continued, “We were out looking for a solution for terminating a Metro Ethernet product — specifically in the initial case, over fiber. We were also looking for test access and visibility. We were evaluating 802.1ag compliant equipment and the driver there was to be able to provide a service to our large enterprise clients that could be monitored by our NOC (News - Alert) proactively end to end, not just from the switching core to the end link. Something that enabled monitoring from the customer's A premise and all the way to the customer's Z premise while performing continuous performance monitoring.”

 

The Accedian Networks solution enables RGTS to proactively monitor end-to-end performance to ensure that committed bandwidth, availability, packet delay and jitter meet each customer’s unique SLA requirements.

 

 

Vermeer explained, “We'd been looking for a carrier-grade Ethernet delivery platform for some time, and now that the Metro Ethernet Forum standards are starting to catch on in the equipment world, we're seeing a lot of new possibilities opening up for Ethernet based delivery and mixing a couple different vendors' solutions together into more complex service delivery scenarios.”

 

Accedian is also enabling RGTS to extend services beyond their usual footprint.

 

"The solution allows us to use a third-party carrier and encapsulate them between two of the units and then we can isolate any sort of performance error that's been introduced by that carrier and really minimize the amount of troubleshooting that we need to do. We can run continuous performance testing on these circuits and get some visibility into the third-party carrier's network, while assuring SLAs over these converged architectures."

 

When asked about the company’s target market, Vermeer told TMCnet, “Our target audience is small to mid-sized businesses and enterprise clients. We like to position ourselves as a single source provider, so of course we like to get into these businesses with either our Internet access or with our structured cabling or VoIP solutions and then bundle other solutions on top of that.”

 

“RGTS was founded back in 1984 as more of an amenity to the tenants within Rockefeller Center, following the B (News - Alert)-LEC model. When we started, we primarily provided voice services to the tenants. Over the years, our portfolio has grown to include IT managed services, structured cabling, wireless and now transport solutions. We have expended geographically over time, with a lot of that growth driven by our clients' needs and requirements as they opened up offices or they needed support in other offices,” he added.

 

According to Accedian’s vice president of marketing Scott Sumner (News - Alert), “What's interesting about RGTS is that they are probably one of our first customers that's not a large incumbent carrier, or wireless provider. It shows how the need for carrier grade Ethernet is coming into the CLECs and into the metro area and that's what makes RGTS a leader in this space, in that they are using carrier grade solutions for their regional network.”

 

In addition to the operational benefits, Vermeer pointed out some additional advantages to deploying the Accedian solution.

 

“It's definitely easier than rolling trucks. It saves us time and it's less complex than a router-based solution. It gives us a lot of the visibility that router-based solutions would give us but it gives it to us in a very small form factor at a very attractive price.

 

“The Accedian offering has filled exactly the need that we wanted it to. It's been very easy to deploy, and we are very happy with it to date.”