Global Crossing's Ethernet Portfolio Expands to Include Ethernet Wide Area Network Services Available Globally

New Services Offer Unparalleled Bandwidth, Billing and Pricing Flexibility

PRNewswire
FLORHAM PARK, N.J.
(NASDAQ-NMS:GLBC)

FLORHAM PARK, N.J., Oct. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall [1]/ -- Global Crossing (NASDAQ: GLBC), a leading global IP and Ethernet solutions provider, today announced it has added the Global Crossing EtherSphere™ family of services to the company's Ethernet WAN transport offers. The new globally available services are EtherSphere Multipoint-to-Multipoint, EtherSphere Point-to-Multipoint and EtherSphere Point-to-Point solutions. They are available today as enterprise and wholesale offers in North America, Europe, the United Kingdom (UK), Asia, and Latin America.

Previously available in the UK as a metropolitan Ethernet offer, the expanded EtherSphere Ethernet WAN transport family now offers customers ubiquitous, global Virtual Private LAN Services (VPLS). EtherSphere solutions use mature, familiar Ethernet technology for wide area transport of enterprise services, such as file sharing, email, document management, enterprise resource planning, and real-time collaboration. The technology is reliable, can easily accommodate additional bandwidth in small increments, offers cost efficiencies traditionally associated with Ethernet, and interworks with other Global Crossing WAN solutions, such as Global Crossing IP Virtual Private Networks. The service is provided over Global Crossing's dedicated Multi Protocol Label Switching backbone network to ensure high-speed, reliable, region-to-region connectivity and access to the Internet.

"Global Crossing's EtherSphere Ethernet wide area transport solutions give enterprise IT managers a way to globally interconnect their locations in key regions around the world," said Dave Carey, Global Crossing's chief marketing officer. "Its genuine, global ubiquity sets our offer apart from the rest of the industry.

"Clearly, Ethernet is rapidly becoming the primary communications technology for global IT organizations," added Carey. "Ethernet is a proven LAN technology for businesses today. And with next-generation enterprise applications, such as disaster recovery, storage, and packet voice and video, driving steep increases in bandwidth demand, enterprise IT managers know that data services over legacy technologies simply do not get the job done. Traditional data services are expensive to scale, operationally complex, and can be painfully slow to upgrade."

"With the launch of EtherSphere, Global Crossing has placed itself in a competitive position for meeting growing demand in the market for international any-to-any Layer 2 Carrier Ethernet services," stated Joel Stradling, senior analyst at Current Analysis. "The operator is hitting the market with a well-designed Ethernet VPLS offer that is enhanced with several features, such as support for up to six CoS, and flexible pricing and bandwidths. The richness in capability combined with strong existing global MPLS reach and know-how make the Global Crossing EtherSphere product range a strong proposition in the market."

According to Ian Redpath, Principal Analyst, Ovum, the global Ethernet VPLS market is projected to increase from $1.3 billion in 2008 to $8.4 billion in 2014, which translates into an estimated Compound Annual Growth Rate of 37 percent.

VPLS is an ideal technology for enterprises that need to connect data centers or remote locations. It is particularly attractive to the healthcare, financial, government, and technology industries interested in deploying multi-site, multi-regional WANs. It is a private Ethernet (Layer 2) network constructed over a "packet-based" infrastructure that has the ability to span several networks. Global Crossing's VPLS supports a range of connectivity options, including multipoint-to-multipoint, point-to-multipoint, and point-to-point.

Global Crossing's EtherSphere services support six classes of service that enable users to prioritize traffic to maximize bandwidth use and efficiency. The service also offers a highly desirable usage-based billing component that helps enterprises more easily accommodate irregular and unpredictable bandwidth use, as well as more effectively manage their network costs. This is especially beneficial for backup and disaster recovery implementations.

The company's comprehensive service delivery program, Service Express™, also supports EtherSphere deployment. This helps ensure that means EtherSphere services will be delivered -- ready for use -- by the committed dates.

Global Crossing's electronic customer portal, uCommand®, directly provides 24x7 online access to provision, troubleshoot, control, monitor, support, and manage the EtherSphere service.

The Global Crossing EtherSphere WAN services are supported by numerous access methods. Through the company's EtherExtend(SM) Flex access service and UK EtherSphere service, enterprises will be able to connect to Ethernet transport services from 150 locations, including nearly 80 Cisco 7600 series provider edge routers, supporting 26 countries around the globe.

Cisco IP NGN Plays Key Role for Global Crossing

"Global Crossing clearly understands the needs of enterprise IT organizations and we are pleased that they have chosen Cisco technology to develop this exciting new service," said Shailesh Shukla, vice president and general manager, edge routing business unit, Cisco. "The Cisco 7600 Series routers, featuring our ES+ line cards and Cisco ME 3400 Series Ethernet Access Switches, help enable Global Crossing to transition from a multiple service-specific network to a converged, IP/MPLS network."

Global Crossing has achieved the Cisco® Powered Carrier Ethernet designation for its EtherExtend Flex service. This designation recognizes Global Crossing for having acquired the resources and established the procedures to deploy, manage and support Carrier Ethernet services globally.

The Cisco Powered Program is Cisco's premier partnering vehicle for solution providers who offer Cisco technologies as a part of their service offerings. This program sets the standard for recognizing a solution provider's investment in the tools and processes necessary to provide high-quality, network-based managed services. A Cisco Powered designation not only acknowledges that a service provider has invested in industry-leading Cisco solutions, but also entitles the solutions provider to take advantage of Cisco resources to envision, build, market and sell its managed services, thus accelerating market acceptance and adoption.

Global Crossing also is a member of the Metro Ethernet Forum, a global industry alliance comprising more than 150 organizations including telecommunications service providers, cable operators, multi-service operators (MSOs), network equipment and test vendors, software manufacturers, semiconductors vendors and testing organizations. Its mission is to accelerate the worldwide adoption of Carrier-class Ethernet networks and services by developing technical specifications and implementation agreements to promote interoperability and deployment of Carrier Ethernet worldwide.

ABOUT GLOBAL CROSSING

Global Crossing (NASDAQ: GLBC) is a leading global IP solutions provider of telecommunications solutions over the world's first integrated global IP-based network. The company offers a full range of secure data, voice, and video products to approximately 40 percent of the Fortune 500, as well as to 700 carriers, mobile operators and ISPs. It delivers services to more than 690 cities in more than 60 countries and six continents around the globe.

Please visit www.globalcrossing.com [2] or blogs.globalcrossing.com/ [3] for more information about Global Crossing.