Verizon Business Transforms Wide Area Networking With New Ethernet Virtual Private LAN Service

BASKING RIDGE, N.J - Businesses and government agencies will be able to easily and cost effectively extend their Ethernet local area networks and link up their offices and work locations around the country, using a new service launched Monday (March 12) by Verizon Business. The offering, Ethernet Virtual Private LAN Service (E-VPLS), is available virtually anywhere in the United States now, with plans to expand to international locations next year. Verizon Business is the first major service provider to offer E-VPLS.

E-VPLS, delivered via Verizon Business’ innovative converged packet architecture, is ideal for businesses and government agencies that have locations throughout the United States and are seeking to link multiple sites. The offering gives these customers the flexibility to adjust their networks’ bandwidth from 1 Mbps (megabits per second) to 1Gbps (gigabits per second), enabling them to transmit voice and data efficiently and cost effectively.

“The market has been eagerly awaiting an E-VPLS service to extend the familiarity, simplicity and cost-effectiveness of Ethernet for wide area networking on a national level,” said Tom Roche, vice president, business data products, for Verizon. "This new service combines the simplicity of Ethernet, the reliability of synchronous optical network (SONET), and the flexibility of multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) to help organizations cost-effectively upgrade their existing corporate networks for converged voice, data and video applications.

“Verizon Business continues to build on its heritage of innovation and leadership developing and delivering advanced data solutions that move the industry forward and help our customers meet a wide range of business requirements.”

Because E-VPLS is a layer 2 networking solution, it is ideal for customers preferring to maintain control of their routing, rather than share it with their service provider. E-VPLS is protocol independent, supporting both IP and non-IP applications, making it attractive for frame relay or ATM customers who want to upgrade their WAN. The new offering provides speed and performance without compromising IP-routing control or existing applications.

In addition to its broad commercial appeal, E-VPLS was requested by the U.S. General Services Administration as part of its Networx program, which is designed to help federal agencies make the transition to next-generation networking services.

E-VPLS is an optimal platform for converged services because it allows for prioritization of applications via four classes of service (CoS): Real Time, Priority, Business and Basic Data. An organization can customize prioritization to ensure that business-critical applications receive the highest priority across the network. Real time CoS makes E-VPLS ideal for carrying latency-sensitive traffic such as voice over IP (VoIP) and digital video. E-VPLS is backed by robust service level agreements (SLAs), which provide the peace of mind that customers expect from a carrier-class WAN service.

Dan O’Connell, research director for Gartner, said, “VPLS is a major new growth area for Ethernet. Customers are already very familiar with Ethernet in their local area networks. Extending to the wide area network is a natural progression, especially for those business and government customers seeking a clear IP migration path to enable convergence of their multiple legacy networks.”

Verizon Business is a recognized leader delivering Ethernet services for business customers around the world. Last year, the company was awarded the 2006 Ethernet Provider of the Year Award for Market Leadership by Heavy Reading, and was also named Ethernet Service Provider of the Year by the Metro Ethernet Forum. Adding E-VPLS to its Ethernet product portfolio is proof that Verizon Business is committed to continuing this leadership.

Verizon Business’ award-winning portfolio of Ethernet services includes:

-Ethernet - Virtual Private LAN Service (E-VPLS) - virtually anywhere nationwide.


-Ethernet Private Line (EPL) - within 145 U.S. metro markets and 10 European countries.


-Ethernet Virtual Private Line (EVPL) - virtually anywhere nationwide and six Asia-Pacific countries and territories, as well as between the United States and six Asia-Pacific regions, and between the United States and 10 European countries.


-E-LAN Metro Services -- within 53 metro markets in the United States.


-Ethernet Access for Private IP and the public Internet -- virtually anywhere nationwide, within 19 European countries and nine countries within the Asia-Pacific region.

Customers may use Ethernet either as a stand-alone end-to-end service in the United States, Europe and Asia-Pacific regions or as a means of quickly and easily accessing either the Internet or Private IP, Verizon Business’ MPLS-based VPN offering.