Trying to do more than you can possibly accomplish in January 2011? Want to keep the family satisfied and network and develop business for your powerhouse telecommunications company? Sign up to sponsor, exhibit and participate in other ways at PTC scheduled January 16-19, 2011.  Bring your family and let them enjoy 101 absolutely fun activities while you network at the conference.

Meet with CEOs and other industry leaders such as Bill Barney of Pacnet, David Storrie of Nucleus Connect, Mark Rigolle of O3B, Nongluck , Reza Hajebi of Yahoo!, Ihab Tarazi of Verizon, Rehan Allahwala of DIDX, and Mark Taylor of Level3.  Diamond sponsors include TaTa Communications and Rogers. Airtel, Ciena, Infinera, O3b Networks and Pacnet are platinum sponsors. Some of the exhibitors are Adva, Calix, Capacity Magazine, Cordell, Edison Carrier Solutions, Optelian, Redcom, Sansay, Suttle and Zhone. Enjoy a slideshow of pictures during 2009 of some of these companies and more taken by Techistan and DIDX media team members.

Watch Vinod Kumar, CEO of TaTa Communications on on the migration of TaTa’s legacy services of voice over to IP and its wholesale strategy during the 2009 PTC.

Back to the family, see a comprehensive listing of restaurants in Honolulu, Oahu area and consider the Hale Koa or Hilton Hawaiian as the best for lodging and convenience to the conference itself. Our Techistan team has taken families to the Waikiki Aquarium, the Farmers’ Markets, and even learned to surf with the North Shore Girls.

Telx leverages leading global network integrator GTT to offer its customers flexible GigE Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) for low-latency, diversified connectivity options
 
Key Highlights:
Telx accesses GTT’s robust network through direct Gig-E connections in eight Telx locations. GTT is already an interconnection and colocation customer of Telx, with established PoPs in eight Telx facilities across the U.S.
GTT’s GigE backbone is available via one of Telx’s Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) service nodes.
The relationship leverages GTT’s global network architecture enabling seamless connectivity for Telx customers.
With GTT, Telx can offer its customers enhanced network capacity and provision services in near real-time, offering even more flexible IP offerings (10mb, 100mb all on the same GigE connection) while providing burst capability up to the full GigE for bandwidth-intensive applications and low latency applications.  
 
New York, NY (March 15, 2010) –Global Telecom and Technology (“GTT”) (OTCBB: GTLT), a global network integrator that provides a broad portfolio of wide-area network solutions to over 750 customers,  today announces that Telx now offers Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) connectivity via GTT’s network to its interconnection and colocation customers in eight key U.S. cities. Through this relationship, GTT’s resilient GigE infrastructure will be available via Telx’s Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) solution, giving customers even more high-performance connectivity choices.
 
“We are excited to provide services to Telx in eight of their carrier-rich colocation facilities,” said Richard D. Calder, Jr., GTT’s President and CEO. “As a global network integrator, we help companies like Telx build out their networks with reliable and secure connectivity, anywhere in the world.  With GTT’s technology and expertise powering their network, Telx can continue to offer customers industry-leading connectivity choice.”
 
GTT has established relationships with over 800 global network operators, allowing them to deliver network services nearly everywhere in the world, GTT’s experienced team is able to address even the most complex bandwidth and connectivity needs.  By leveraging GTT’s robust GigE connections Telx can offer a greater network capacity for its DIA service, a network-neutral environment delivering colocation and automated routing to provide a reliable, dedicated Internet connection for business customers. This allows Telx to provision connectivity services quickly, offering more flexibility on the speed and availability of IP throughput (10mb and 100mb, all on the same GigE connection) while also providing burst capability up to the full GigE speed.   
 
“Telx has a long relationship with GTT, serving as their interconnection and colocation partner in eight key U.S. markets for four years,” said Eric Shepcaro, CEO of Telx. “We are pleased to bring the unique value proposition of GTT’s industry experience and innovative technology to our Dedicated Internet Access (DIA) customers, giving them more choice in secure, network-neutral, low-latency connections that meet their business communications needs.”
 
GTT and Telx will be attending the Comptel PLUS Spring 2010 Convention and Expo, March 14-17 in Nashville, Tennessee.  Joint interviews with GTT and Telx are available upon request.
 
About GTT
GTT is a global network integrator providing a broad portfolio of Wide-Area Network (WAN), Dedicated Internet Access and mobility services. With over 800 supplier relationships worldwide, GTT combines multiple networks and technologies such as traditional OC-x, MPLS and Ethernet, to deliver cost-effective solutions specifically designed for each client’s unique requirements. GTT enhances its client performance through its proprietary Client Management Database (CMD), providing customers with an integrated support system for all of its services.  GTT is committed to providing comprehensive solutions, project management and 24×7 global operations support. Headquartered in McLean, Virginia, GTT now has offices in Denver, Dusseldorf, London and provides services to more than 700 enterprise, government, and carrier clients in over 80 countries, worldwide. For more information visit the GTT website at www.gt-t.net.
 
About Telx
Telx is the leading provider of interconnection, colocation and business exchange services in strategic, high demand North American markets.  With 15 premier facilities, Telx increases speed to market and reduces connectivity costs by providing direct connections to the industry’s highest performance networks and access to more than 750 leading telecommunications carriers, ISPs, content providers and enterprises. Telx is a privately held company headquartered in New York City with four facilities in the New York Metro area, two facilities in Chicago, two facilities in Dallas, three facilities in California, (Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Santa Clara) and facilities in Atlanta, Miami, Phoenix and Charlotte, N.C. For more information about Telx, visit www.telx.com.
 
Contact:              
Michelle Barry
BridgeView Marketing for Telx
603.570.7533
michelle@bridgeviewmarketing.com
Twitter: @Telx_Group
 
For GTT
Ilissa Miller
Jaymie Scotto & Associates
866.695.3629
pr@jaymiescotto.com
Twitter: @GTT_WAN

Watch TelxGroup videos, !

  Al Gore’s book in the early 90s, “Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit,” and Rich Tehrani of TMC’s Green Technology World in September 2007 sparked a variety of responses: apathy, ridicule, inspiration, and action for many regarding green technology. Climate change activists publicize the idea, but the actual implementation depends upon service and product providers making changes. The innovations must lead to environmentally-friendly services that are attractive to and purchased by users.

In 2007, Delta Airlines announced a corporate cans and bottle recycling program. (Our Techistan research team searched the Delta site and could not find any reference to it with either of these set of terms: “corporate recycling” or “recycling.”) Read about Starbucks’ explanation as to their ability or lack of ability to recycle at http://www.starbucks.com/aboutus/pressdesc.asp?id=792.

The Toyota Prius as well as electric cars and other hybrid cars became popular the same year and more so in 2010, largely because of a USA tax incentive but also incentives by Canada, Jordan, UK and other countries.

The telecom industry, often ahead in technology than other industries, has had many role models, has made many promises, and has or has not followed through in green technologies.  Energy may become cleaner and more powerful as more people, endpoints, and technologies are connected within the particular network.

Bob Metcalfe’s Law states that the value of a telecom network is proportionate to the square of the number of users in a system: the more distributed users there are on the system, the greater the value of the network and of those endpoints themselves. Services and companies that fit into this scenario very well include TelX, Stealth Communications, Voice Peering Fabric, DIDX, Facebook, Arbinet, eBay, Skype, and Google, of course, with a huge gap between lowest value to highest, but still accurately defined.

Companies that take not only an environmentally-friendly view of providing service to the world but also a philanthropical push to empower the less fortunate include Vocati Communications, Global Crossing, ActivePort, and BetterWorld Telecom LLC (of which Techistan has interviewed the first three and looking forward to the third). BetterWorld Telecom LLC was the first carbon-neutral carrier in the United States. In 2007, BettrWorld Telecom claimed to use VoIP, wireless, and unified communications to shrink its infrastructure, utilities, and energy needs. It had planned to get rid of paper billing. It was using an Internet-based and paperless system. Whenever paper was needed, its preferred was 100% recycled paper. Also in 2007, it was giving 3% of revenue to nonprofit activities that benefited education, children and the environment. It had set a goal to donate at least one million dollars by the end of 2012.

The Climate Savers Computing Initiative, a nonprofit group of consumers, businesses and conservation organizations, is dedicated to promoting smart technologies to improve the power efficiency and reduce the energy consumption of computers. Some of the organizations involved in 2007 were Intel Corporation, Google and other PC companies. In early 2010, others include the same, plus Dell, EDS, the United States Environmental Protection Agency‎ (EPA), Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Microsoft, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), World Wildlife Fund and more. See the complete updated list at http://www.climatesaverscomputing.org/about/member-directory/. The goal was and is to reduce energy consumption by computers by 50 percent and reduce global CO2 emissions from the operation of computers by 54 million tons a year by 2010.

For more information, consider registering now for http://www.itexpo.com in Miami Beach, Florida on January 20-22, 2010 to participate in Virtualization, SmartGrid, Cloud Computing, and other sessions and summits that involve green technologies and resourceful uses and types of technologies, services, and products. An additional and powerfully-informative and action-oriented event is the IEEE Green Technology Conference scheduled for April 24-25, 2010 in Dallas, Texas. Make your company promises and follow through with action whether in green technology areas or helping those who need help. Be respected and THE choice to do business with.

By Grant Kirkwood, CTO of Mzima Networks

Mzima Network's CTO Grant Kirkwood

  The Internet is a tool that is enabling ubiquitous communications. From our computers to our handheld devices, televisions, video surveillance, financial institutions, hospitals, homes and beyond, applications are continually developed that require end users the ability to access higher bandwidth speeds. But speed isn’t the only factor to consider when evaluating quality Internet transit: access to content and the quickest route (reduced latency) is important to realizing optimal IP connectivity as well. Content providers, ISPs, Cable companies and telcos that service the general marketplace are continually evaluating the most efficient routes and the providers that offer those routes in order to achieve the best cost and quality service for its end users. This is why it is important to understand the differences between Tier 1 and Tier 2 IP backbone Providers to ensure the end-user experience is the best balance of both price and quality.

To understand how to choose an IP backbone provider, we first should understand how providers differ from one another. Tier 1 network providers are networks that peer with all other Tier 1 networks, settlement free (ie; no money changes hands). Tier 1 networks pass traffic between each network for free; there is no cost to transit another Tier 1 network’s backbone. Tier 2 IP backbone providers must pay to transit another network’s backbone that includes buying transit from Tier 1 networks as well as other Tier 2 networks, though there is often the opportunity to peer (exchange traffic destined for each other’s networks at no cost) with other Tier 2 networks.

Most of these peering interconnection points are done within Colocation facilities, like Telx. Telx is also an example of an interconnection facility that also offers an Internet Exchange platform, the Telx Internet Exchange (TIE), to facilitate peering between Tier 1 and Tier 2 network providers on a platform, managed specifically for the purpose of offering the greatest number of networks through a single connection (or port). As networks interconnect with one another, Internet traffic can pass over other networks that are controlled by engineers seeking the best (can’t say that—engineers don’t care about price!) price, distance or latency and the number of ‘hops’ (the number of routers or networks traffic has to pass through to reach its end point), which could effect latency and price (adversely).

To further complicate matters, the routing tables that decide which path the data should travel are highly complex. The Internet routing table is made up of about 300,000 individual routes that represent IP address ranges. A Tier 1 network, by definition, is required to peer with all other Tier 1 networks and by definition, does not have to pay to route traffic to another Tier 1 network (or any of those specific IP routes). Therefore, since sending traffic over a Tier 1 peer doesn’t cost anything, these providers are motivated to get traffic off their network as quickly as possible. But this will not help the end-user who is streaming live video from a cable provider, for example. By doing so, Tier 1 Network providers send traffic via routes that are learned through other Tier 1 providers, regardless of performance, flexibility or redundancy. In addition, since routing traffic among Tier 1 peers is free, it is extremely cost effective to sell access to their networks, particularly to content heavy users (gigabit connections and higher). Therefore, Tier 1 IP backbone providers can offer reduced IP transit costs. However, since they are motivated by cost-savings, quality isn’t a factor in how traffic is routed. Therefore, price, not quality, is achieved but rarely both.

Tier 2 network providers, inherently, have many more routing options to choose from – since they are buying transit routes no matter which provider the traffic needs to traverse. However, these purchasing decisions can be made for a variety of reasons, including the type of traffic, the global reach required, budgets, network speed required and more. This flexibility also creates an immense amount of confusion to buyers, since clearly some Tier 2 networks route solely on price, or quality or luck of the draw. So choosing the right Tier 2 becomes critical.

There are many ways to test network providers’ routing choices, but at the end of the day buyers should consider the following:
1.The extent (quantity + quality) of the provider’s global peering relationships
2.The ability to provide quality end-to-end solutions
3.The flexibility in providing its services
4.The companies the provider partners with
5.Perhaps most importantly, the customer service provided throughout the process

Since Tier 1 network providers are motivated to keep get traffic off their network as quickly as possible through their other Tier 1 peering relationships, the buyers’ experience can be unpredictable. A Tier 2 network provider, such as Mzima Networks, can offer visibility into its routing procedures, which ensures IP traffic will be routed through the most direct and closest path; this direct path provides a more reliable transit solution. In addition, quality Tier 2s like Mzima who manage multiple, global peering relationships have the ability to configure the network to consistently optimize the IP route.

When evaluating providers, here are a few key questions to consider:

1.How many global direct peering relationships does the provider have?
2.Which Tier 1 backbone providers does it connect to?
3.Where can you interconnect to the provider?
4.Are there SLAs offered?
5.Lastly, during the process it is important to recognize how questions were answered and how quickly you received a response.

Mzima Networks has focused its business model on creating more efficient peering connections among other Tier 2 providers in order to deliver content and streaming media more efficiently for and between its customers. The company’s goal is to connect to as many networks as it can, in as many locations as possible, in order to bypass the Tier 1 ‘inner circle’ as often as possible. This doesn’t mean that Tier 1 providers are not necessary, because indeed they are – but more often than not, Tier 1s are not the shortest or more efficient route to a destination from a cost and quality stand-point.

Another factor is whether a buyer has its own Autonomous System Number (ASN). Today there are over 43,000 unique ASNs active in the routing table, which allows each network to connect to the Internet. A benefit for a network to have its own ASN is the ability to multi-home. Multi-homing is the ability to connect to multiple transit providers in order to improve performance. It provides operators the ability to route traffic through a best route, as well as having an alternative redundant provider should a network connection fail. In order to have a multi-homed solution, a provider must use Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), and in order to BGP, a network operator must have an ASN.

As a buyer evaluates its Internet backbone options, consider multi-homing as well. This will give network operators the opportunity to choose a primary provider as well as a secondary provider. This will ease the burden on your network decision, since you could purchase transit from two complimentary providers – which could include both a Tier 1 and a Tier 2 IP backbone provider – just make sure the Tier 2 is not already buying from your Tier 1 choice.

For more questions on how to choose your network provider, either a Tier 1, Tier 2 or even both, please email info@mzima.net.

Mzima Networks is not to be confused with Mzinga whose Director of Strategic Consulting Isaac Hazard, also Vantage Communications‘ Rob Adler, and Techistan and DIDX vice president Suzanne Bowen will present How to Leverage Social Media for a Successful Marketing Campaign collaboratively at ITEXPO East Jan. 20, 2010 at 2 PM. Peter Radizeski is the moderator. He is a telecom specialist, for example assists businesses to become a CLEC. He is with Rad-Info, Inc. Check the session list and sign up to participate. Telx has also a very exciting Youtube video channel where our VP is interviewed.