Verizon's Partner Port Program, launched last year, is proving successful in enabling Verizon to run its Internet backbone more efficiently. So successful, in fact, that the company is planning a network upgrade to 100-Gbit/s Ethernet, and it will be extending the program to international locations this year.

The Verizon Partner Port Program today enables content delivery network operators and content aggregators to directly connect to Verizon's Internet infrastructure at eight markets around the country, including Atlanta, Chicago, Ashburn, Va./Washington, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York City, Seattle, and San Jose, Calif. Those direct connections enable Verizon to more efficiently plan for high-bandwidth traffic, such as video content, rather than having that traffic hit Verizon's network unexpectedly at a peering point, says Boh R. Dupree, group marketing manager for Verizon.

The direct connection also eliminates the multiple network hops that traffic would otherwise traverse to deliver content from a Dallas site, for example, to a Los Angeles location. Those multiple hops can introduce jitter and delay and result in substantial buffering, particularly for video content, says Kyle R. Okamoto, group marketing manager.

"The main point of having that control is have a better end-user experience," Okamoto says.

Verizon intends the program to enable more efficient use of its network by carrying high-volume video traffic regionally, rather than across the national backbone, and building 10-Gig on-ramps where they are most efficiently used, according to Dupree.

For Verizon's 9.2 million broadband customers, the value is in faster and better access to the growing volume of video traffic, Okamoto says.

In this week's announcement, Ihab Tarazi, vice president of global network planning for Verizon, said the company has "active plans" to upgrade the Verizon Partner Port Program to 100-Gigabit Ethernet, based on increased demand for the 10-Gig ports it offers now.

Okamoto says there is also increased demand from international CDNs and content aggregators that is pushing Verizon to extend the Partner Port Program to aggregation sites abroad.

"We are coming out with an international Partner Port Program that will make it more efficient for international CDNs or content aggregators to us our backbone network," Okamoto says.

— Carol Wilson, Chief Editor, Events, Light Reading