Level 3 Communications announced it has leveraged its award-winning ONTAPSM system to launch a new wholesale private line service in the U.S. and Europe.
The new service, named (3)HubSM Private Line, is a “self-service” private line offering that enables carriers, system integrators and other customers to provision, upgrade and manage their own metropolitan and long-haul circuits on an as needed, pay-as-you-go basis. (3)Hub provides a level of self-managed provisioning and cost control that until now was not available using private lines.
“(3)Hub Private Line is ideal for customers who anticipate bandwidth growth, but want to save money, align revenue with unit cost, and have optimum control for managing their own circuits,” said Steve Liddell, senior vice president of Private Line and Transoceanic Services for Level 3. “The service represents a new flexibility in private line solutions that enables customers to carve out and self-manage individual circuits that range in capacity from a DS-1 to an OC-48.
“(3)Hub Private Line empowers customers with the tools to manage the service as an extension of their own networks, and complements Level 3’s previously existing private line, wavelength and IP data services,” added Liddell. “For certain applications and customers, (3)Hub can be a more complete network solution when bundled with (3)Flex Ethernet or another Level 3 transport or IP data service.”
A single (3)Hub facility can be defined as a point-to-point SONET or SDH path along which the customer can activate and control one or more private lines. Each of these user-controlled private lines is called a (3)Hub circuit.
The (3)Hub service provides customers with the ability to create a highly customized private network that can extend their presence to new markets without the expense of dedicated infrastructure. The (3)Hub service addresses last-mile problems by allowing customers with expected metropolitan or intercity bandwidth growth to order a facility several times larger than what they might typically afford. In this pay-as-you-go model, the customer can then turn up individual circuits within this larger facility, through their own initiative, paying only for the circuits they have activated.
“The (3)Hub solution harnesses new enhancements in Level 3’s award-winning ONTAP system to put the power and control of dynamic circuit provisioning and network management in the hands of our customers,” said Keith Molony, director of Private Line Services for Level 3. “Previously, the only option was to purchase the entire bandwidth of a private line, and pay for it all whether it was used or not.
“Now, for example, customers can decide if they need to immediately turn up an OC-3, an OC-12, or multiple DS-1s within a given OC-48 facility, paying only for the capacity they provision. The capacity of the entire OC-48 facility is there and available to them and, through the ONTAP system, can be provisioned on an as-needed basis.”
“These circuits are tailored by customers to conform to their own needs,” added Molony. “For example, an OC-48 (3)Hub facility might consist of a single OC-3 circuit on Tuesday, and then get upgraded by the customer to six OC-3s and two DS-3s the following day. The customer pays only for the circuits he chooses to activate.”
Level 3 provides (3)Hub Private Line service in 83 markets. Customers can connect to the (3)Hub service throughout the range of traditional SONET and SDH interfaces from DS-1/E-1 to OC-48/STM-16. Customers can also take advantage of the flexibility offered through the availability of both protected and unprotected facilities and circuits.
