IP: MFS's $500 MILLION, 10GB CONNECTION - WHO CAN CATCH UUNET

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

    MFS's $500 MILLION, 10GB CONNECTION - WHO CAN CATCH UUNET NOW?
                                  =20
           MFS announces unprecedented investment programme
                      in new transatlantic cable


     European businesses and ISPs are set to benefit from the the most
advanced transatlantic fibre optic telecommunications cable system yet
constructed, when it goes live in 15 months time. The planned $500
million deal is made possible through a joint venture between MFS and
Cable & Wireless, announced yesterday.=20


     David Barrett, head of corporate communications at Europe's
largest ISP, UUNET PIPEX, is excited by the prospect. He says: "Last
year UUNET was the best connected ISP with around 10Mbps connectivity
across the Atlantic. Just the other day we announced that we would
have 90Mbps by Christmas, which itself puts a lot of clear water
between us and our competitors.=20


     "Yet in little more than a year from now we're going to be able
to offer our business customers and ISPs more transatlantic bandwidth
than anyone could have predicted," said Barrett, adding, "it's
breathtaking."=20


     The system is being built to meet the explosive growth in demand
for broadband services such as multi-media and Internet/Intranet, as
well as more traditional voice and data communications services. The
new transatlantic cable system will provide customers with resilient,
diversely routed services between London and New York =96 the two major
telecommunications hubs for the Americas and Europe. The system will
feature self-healing marine and land-based networks with dual routing
and diversity all supported by a single management system.=20


     Constructed using the latest SDH technology (Synchronous Digital
Hierarchy), the system will boast a fully redundant configuration
offering 10 Gigabits (10 billion bits per second) of capacity.=20
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--
Brian Tao (BT300, taob () io org, taob () ican net)
Senior Systems and Network Administrator, Internet Canada Corp.
"Though this be madness, yet there is method in't"