Verizon first service provider to announce 100G deployment on U.S. network

Verizon plans to deploy 100G (gigabits per second) technology on selected segments of its U.S. backbone network by the end of the second quarter of 2011, bringing customers the benefit of greatly increased speed and performance for everything from cloud-based enterprise applications to video streaming. The network segments include Chicago to New York, Sacramento to Los Angeles and Minneapolis to Kansas City.

"We've already successfully deployed 100G on a portion of our European network, and now we're preparing to expand this technology to our U.S. network," said Ihab Tarazi, vice president of network planning at Verizon. "Advancing to 100G is a significant step in strengthening our global IP network to handle the bandwidth demands of our customers - whether it's large enterprises or the average consumer. Besides greater scalability and network efficiencies, we also expect 100G deployment to improve latency on a route-by-route basis."

Customer demand is driving the company to deploy 100G, as business customers launch integrated solutions that include cloud computing services, security, and unified communications and collaboration applications. Consumers are advancing growth through applications such as video streaming and online gaming.

Verizon's rollout of 100G in the U.S. will use Juniper Networks routers and Ciena's 100G coherent optical transport solution. Verizon also used Juniper and Ciena equipment for its 100G deployment in Europe earlier this year.

"Juniper Networks has a proud history of working with Verizon to innovate and deliver the next generation of capacity to enable network services to scale ahead of growing subscriber expectations and demands," said Stefan Dyckerhoff, general manager and executive vice president, Platform Systems Group, Juniper Networks. "With the coming availability of 100G service in the U.S., Juniper looks forward to continuing to work with Verizon to deliver scalable, cost-effective and reliable high-speed network connections that empower businesses and individuals to harness the full potential of today's connected life."

Philippe Morin, senior vice president of Ciena's global products group, said: "Verizon and Ciena have worked together for many years in deploying advanced optical technologies, including intelligent mesh switching and coherent optics, to deliver the network capacity, resiliency, and performance that its customers demand. Ciena is thrilled to extend our relationship with Verizon to bring the benefits of next-gen, high-capacity transport to its North American network, driven by our decade of development in coherent optical-processing technologies and extensive field experience with 100G deployments."

Moving to 100G enables Verizon to increase bandwidth efficiency on its existing fiber infrastructure. By installing new equipment on the network while retaining use of the current fiber system, the company can carry up to 10 times the amount of network traffic carried on a standard route. Optical efficiencies also are gained from carrying traffic on a single 100G wavelength as opposed to 10 wavelengths, each operating at 10 gigabits per second.

For the past several years Verizon has been a dominant force in 100G technology, beginning in November 2007 when the company successfully completed the industry's first field trial of 100G optical traffic on a live system. Last month Verizon deployed the world's first standards-based, multivendor 100G Ethernet link for an IP backbone on a portion of the company's European network between Paris and Frankfurt.