LONDON -- London based Carrier Grade Ethernet service provider, Exponential-e today announced the roll out of its VPLS-enabled next generation network (NGN). The UK-wide deployment will enable its customers, typically medium and large enterprises, to benefit from advanced features such as Virtual Private LAN services (VPLS) and service-aware Quality of Service (QoS). The network will also provide a platform for Exponential-e to introduce a host of additional ‘on.net’ services, such as: Video Surveillance, e-commerce applications, voice telephony, data services (real time connectivity, bandwidth on demand) and unified messaging.

Customers will be able to take advantage of plug and play, any to any Ethernet Layer 2 connectivity, with multiple services and applications being delivered independently of one another over a common access pipe. The network removes the need for customers to predict traffic flows between their offices, eliminating the requirement for individual Ethernet VLANs to be created.

The NGN also remedies one of the big criticisms of Ethernet in wide area Layer 2 networks, that being the inability to manage the first mile. With its Layer 2 VPLS network in place Exponential-e will have full visibility and management of the first mile so that they can truly offer customers a fully managed end-to-end service.

The introduction of VPLS simplifies the whole networking process. A far less prescriptive tool, it gives control to the customer, enabling them to make changes to their network as and when they want, removing the need to contact the service provider each time they want to make a change, such as increasing or decreasing bandwidth. This function is expected to help create demand for layer 2 solutions as some companies, particularly in the finance sector, are reluctant to handover IP routing.


Service Aware Quality of ServiceExponential-e’s customers can also expect to benefit from an even greater level of service since a major feature of the NGN is service aware QoS. This enables higher priority traffic to take precedence over non-critical traffic. While many networks have had the ability to put inter-site traffic into different priority queues for some time, it has always required that the traffic has been pre-identified by the customer. Exponential-e’s new service aware feature removes the need for the customer to ‘tag’ traffic as it can identify different traffic flows and automatically prioritises a customer’s data according to their own definition of those priorities.

The feature is so sensitive that even where HTTP protocols are more commonly used for mission critical applications, the traffic can now be identified and given a higher priority than other general Internet surfing.

“This is an exciting time for Exponential-e and our customers”, commented Adrian Hobbins, CTO, Exponential-e. “The NGN provides a common, unified and flexible architecture which supports multiple types of services and applications, irrespective of the type of transport. By moving to this environment we can deliver faster, richer services while delivering a QoS which is previously heard of in this industry”.

Exponential-e Ltd.