TeliaSonera International Carrier selects Infinera for 100G network

TeliaSonera International Carrier (TSIC) on Monday chose Infinera's (Nasdaq: INFN) DTN-X 100G platform for its North American network, giving it the capabilities needed to support its backbone traffic and deliver 100G services to its wholesale customers.

Built on TSIC's 18,000 km, 35 point-of-presence (PoP) network, the 100G capabilities will serve a mix of traditional carriers and content providers that are furthering their presence in North America. What sets TSIC apart from others is that it owns its U.S. network, which is based on fiber purchased from WilTel in the late 1990s.

Outside of the United States, TSIC deployed a 100G pan-European network with Nokia Siemens Networks.

"Our relationship with Infinera began in 2009 where we selected their DTN platform to light our fiber in the U.S. to provide 1 Gig and 10 Gig wave services in the marketplace as well as to manage capacity in our own network," said Ivo Pascucci, head of sales, Americas, TeliaSonera International Carrier, in an interview with FierceTelecom. "We operate AS#1299, which is the third largest IP backbone globally following after Level 3 and Global Crossing, so this step for us was important to be able to manage the demand of our IP services and compete and sell transport services to our wholesale customers which are primarily carriers and large content providers in several verticals such as gaming and video streaming."

With traditional 100G systems, a service provider would have to either spend money up front to keep spare modules on hand or order spares as customers ask for more bandwidth.

One of the major points of the deployment is Infinera's Instant Bandwidth capability, which enables service providers like TSIC to quickly provision additional 100G network capacity with its one-click software feature. With this feature, Infinera generates a software key and then the service is activated at the network node that serves a particular customer.

Before committing to deploying the DTN-X platform, TSIC and Infinera conducted a Tbps optical trial leveraging the DTN-X equipment last November using 2x500 Gbps wavelengths on its West Coast network.

"For us, the trial was a big step and proved the viability of the DTN-X platform," Pascucci said. "Fast forward to today, we made the decision to go with the DTN-X upgrade in our network and we expect it to be completed in the next 30 days or so."

When this upgrade is completed, TSIC's North American network will be able to deliver up to 8 Tbps of capacity, up from 1.6 Tbps, in addition to providing 100G transport services.

Pascucci said the demand to get 100G services is an opportunity it can now address.

"Up till now, we do have customers where we are providing 10X10 or 20x10 Gig capacity on A-Z spans of our network, and this step to serve single 100 Gig is really big and we're seeing it from the market," he said. "We are seeing it from the market and there is demand for 100 Gig capacity materializing in the market with all of the efficiencies that that brings in terms of cross connects in managing one connection versus 10 or 20 on a connection."

Pascucci added that the Instant Bandwidth capability will help it deal with spikes not only on its own Internet backbone, but on its customers' networks when requested.

"Instant Bandwidth will enable us to activate 100 Gigs on demand, really both from our own network management for our own IP network--unpredictable traffic flows, this helps us manage that--and any events that happen in the network or the Internet world,"  he said. "Our customers more and more have requirements for large capacity to be delivered quickly, and Instant Bandwidth allows us to meet those demands in the market."

Having worked together since 2009 when TSIC deployed Infinera's DTN platform, this latest win serves as further validation for Infinera's DTN-X platform. Infinera continues to face a bevy of competitors, including Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU), Ciena (Nasdaq: CIEN) and Nokia Siemens Networks, which have been also aggressively racking up a number of high profile 100G optical wins.

In Q3, the optical vendor reported that the DTN-X is in the process of being deployed by 16 carrier customers. The vendor said that DTN-X sales helped drive up the vendor's Q3 GAAP revenues to $112.2 million.

During the Q3 earnings call, Tom Fallon, Infinera's President and CEO, said it would be announcing another major carrier win at the end of the year.

For more:
- see the release

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