Verizon Launches Nationwide Ethernet VPN Service

Verizon Business introduced an Ethernet-based wide area networking service this week for enterprises that want to connect multiple, geographically-distributed offices while retaining control of their network bandwidth--and costs.

Verizon's Ethernet Virtual Private LAN Service (E-VPLS), available now in most place in the United States, allows organizations to modify the speed of their WANs to accommodate voice, video, or data in order to keep their network operations efficient--and paying for only the bandwidth they truly need. Enterprise customers can regulate bandwidth on their networks from 1 Mbps to 1 Gbps with the service, according to Verizon.E-VPLS uses a synchronous optical network (SONET) to carry the converged traffic. Aimed squarely at current ATM and frame-relay users, E-VPLS allows organizations to manage their own routing schemes using multi-protocol label switching (MPLS). Businesses can also prioritize applications based on their time-sensitivity and bandwidth requirements using four classes of service (CoS) to tag the level of service traffic needs. For example, businesses can label voice-over-IP (VoIP) traffic as requiring real-time CoS.

Verizon says the service is expected to launch internationally in 2008.