Integra adds E-LAN to Ethernet service line

Integra Telecom on Tuesday introduced E-LAN Ethernet services that target medium and large-sized multisite customers that want multipoint-to-multipoint Layer 2 VPN services.

With the E-LAN service, Integra's customers can scale their multi-location corporate or campus networks with control over their quality of service (QoS).

Customers in vertical segments such as health care and government that subscribe to the E-LAN service can get Layer 2 Mesh connectivity for multiple locations at bandwidths of up to 10 Gbps. An additional feature of Integra's E-LAN product is that it provides a transparent network for Layer 3 routing and allows customers to retain control of any Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) partitioning with the security of a private network.

"We've been building out our Ethernet portfolio with our E-Line product, added wavelengths, and continued to build out our fiber based footprint, EoTDM, and our EoC footprint," said Mike Kozlowski, Director of Product Management for Transport and Data Services for Integra, in an interview with FierceTelecom. "This is the culmination of our Ethernet services portfolio in that it is our any-to-any Layer 2 network, which allows the solutions for our medium and large business customers for their applications needs where they are going to be running classic data, and just general networking options needed for Layer 2 services."

Delivered within Integra's western US footprint over either fiber or copper, the E-LAN service can be purchased through direct, indirect and wholesale channels.

Integra is seeing interest from a number of its customer vertical segments, including healthcare, government and financial companies.   

And while it only made the product available this week, Kozlowski said it had already been offering E-LAN service to higher end customers that wanted this kind of service.

"We've had been selling these on a special basis and we have had pretty good demand so we know the product will ramp pretty well especially as we announce that we have a formal offer in the market," he said.  

Complementing the new product is a set of performance monitoring tools that enable Ethernet customers to monitor their Ethernet network via an Element Management System (EMS)-like web portal.

"An additional point of uniqueness is we offer our performance monitoring tool, which provides an EMS-like environment with circuit availability that's captured via the Y.1731 standard through the network interface device (NID) and allows us to present it in a graphical format," Kozlowski said. "If you're in any of those larger businesses that operate as a services provider, it creates a mini NOC environment, and when you get into the larger businesses that operate as service providers in house it's a nice feature to have."

This is the latest service to leverage its growing set of on-net fiber and Ethernet over Copper (EoC) networks. The CLEC's fiber network currently reaches into 2,300 buildings and has EoC presence in 122 COs.  

Over the past year, Integra has been continually releasing various fiber and copper-based services including E-LINE Ethernet, wavelength services, and dark fiber.

Larger multisite business clients have become a big part of Integra's revenue mix with almost 70 percent of its sales are coming from multi-location customers. In Q3 2012, the CLEC reported that 79 percent of new sales, up from 57 percent last year, came from the sale of strategic products such as Ethernet. 

For more:
- see the release

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