Level 3 Announces Carrier Cloud Voice Solution

Here’s a roundup of some of this week’s news headlines from the network sector:

Level 3 Announces Carrier Cloud Voice Solution.  Level 3 Communications (LVLT) announced the launch of a Carrier Cloud Voice solution. This frees CLECs (Competitive Local Exchange Carrier), wireless carriers, cable multiple system operators (MSOs) and telcos to focus on growth, rather than concentrating efforts on building or expanding a voice network. Through an agreement with cloud-based voice platform provider Alianza, Level 3 is providing a complete outsourced voice solution for service providers that are looking for ways to add voice, while avoiding significant up-front investment and ongoing operational costs. The joint solution combines Level 3's Enhanced Local Service and Alianza's cloud-based voice platform, which includes a hardened set of APIs for back-office integration, billing and service management. "For communications providers expanding in today's market, adopting a cloud-based voice platform solution can reduce costs and allow them to concentrate resources around more critical core business activities," stated Cindy Whelan, principal analyst at Current Analysis. "Level 3's carrier cloud voice solution is an attractive hosted VoIP platform enabling communications providers to accelerate the time to market, while avoiding onerous capital investment costs and minimizing the operating costs associated with operating a carrier-grade voice service."

Juniper Launches JunosV Contrail Products.  Juniper Networks (JNPR) introduced JunosV Contrail, a family of products which includes the JunosV Contrail Controller, an open, standards-based controller for software-defined networks (SDN). Products in the JunosV Contrail family are based off of intellectual property that Juniper gained when it acquired software networking startup Contrail Systems late last year. The products will deliver a virtual network solution that easily integrates into existing data centers to centralize control across different client IT architectures and multiple cloud platforms. The solution virtualizes the network to enable seamless automation and orchestration among private and public cloud environments, elastic management of IP-based network and security services, and a "Big Data for Infrastructure" offering for enhanced analytics, diagnostics and reporting. "After reviewing SDN solutions from different vendors, China Mobile Research believes that Juniper Networks' JunosV Contrail provides a very competitive architecture for a scalable and interoperable infrastructure," said Lu Huang, Technical Manager, China Mobile Research Institute. "After completion of the trials later this year, we expect to lead the market with production deployment of a multi-vendor SDN solution."

Infinera Selected by BICS.  Infinera (INFN) and BICS, a global provider of international wholesale carrier services, announced the selection of the Infinera DTN-X platform to upgrade BICS' Pan-European network. The Infinera DTN-X delivers 500 Gigabit per second (Gb/s) long haul super-channels, enabling BICS to deliver flexible and cost effective 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) services. The DTN-X platform was selected for the scalability, efficiency and simplicity that the solution delivers. “The Infinera DTN-X allows BICS to provide flexible solutions and ensures a faster service implementation, translating into a shorter time to market for our customers,” said Johan Wouters, SVP Capacity Business Management at BICS. “This new platform will enable the aggregation of multiple high speed services on a single OTN interface. The advanced control plane offers the possibility of self-provisioning for high capacity services, making BICS the perfect network outsourcing partner.”

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