AT&T Optical Bandwidth on Demand Gains Velocity with More Speeds for Customer Provisioning

With a 1GB Transport Speed, Optical Mesh Service Offers Enterprise and Wholesale Customers Exceptional Application Support Over Their Networks

San Antonio, Texas.-AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) today announced a higher speed option for AT&T Optical Mesh Service. This option gives enterprise and wholesale customers a new 1GB bandwidth-on-demand choice for application support and control over their networks.

AT&T Optical Mesh Services allows customers to take direct and unprecedented control over their networks with the ability to reallocate bandwidth as needed by increasing or decreasing network capacity in near real time. Customers also can build and self-administer their own SONET networks using the award-winning AT&T BusinessDirect® customer portal.

Available in 275 locations nationwide, AT&T Optical Mesh Service enables customers to provision additional bandwidth capacity, on demand, to support high-priority data and applications to any pre-defined location on their networks as required. Networked applications and services are seamlessly integrated in near real time. The service is powered by AT&T’s Intelligent Optical Network, a self-healing network that joins multiple offices and locations on a single network and provides 99.999 percent availability, as well as proactive network management and maintenance.

“A dynamic Layer 1 service helps companies trying to solve the dilemma of build versus buy, as well as those seeking network flexibility to plan for the unanticipated,” said Ted Chamberlin, research director, Gartner, Inc. “An on-demand optical solution with as much needed bandwidth is a compelling solution for mission-critical business applications with zero tolerance for downtime, as well as for business continuity.”

“Enterprises depend on their communications network to drive sales and to meet the needs of customers,” said Sanford Brown, vice president, AT&T Connectivity and Metro Network Services. “Flexible networks that can be ’tuned’ to instantly meet changing bandwidth requirements are essential to our customers’ bottom line. Faster transport speeds will enable even more control and flexibility over how they choose to route network traffic and increase or decrease the amount of bandwidth needed at any given time.”

Bandwidth demand growth — driven by increasing use of Web services, as well as business continuity and disaster recovery efforts and the need to link regional branch offices — is forcing enterprises to reevaluate their network infrastructures to provide for greater adaptability. AT&T Optical Mesh Service gives customers the freedom to determine how they want to structure their networks for optimum control and business value.

Customers can provision additional network capacity with rates up to OC48 connection speeds with the click of a mouse via the AT&T customer portal, AT&T BusinessDirect.