Barry Kantner, World Wide Packets

World Wide Packets burst onto the optical networking scene in 2001. Company founder Bernard Daines was a vociferous proponent of Ethernet-based networking ffor its ability to drive low-cost, high-performance networking solutions. At the 2001 Opticon Conference in San Jose, CA, Daines delivered an impassioned critique of companies which he believed were wasting customer dollars in attempts to get Ethernet to behave like circuit-switched networks.

Daines is no longer with the company and the company is winning contract work from municipalities, like Provo, Utah, by delivering services based (at least in part) on technologies that Daines once scorned.

It was Provo Mayor Lewis Billing's appearance in Lafayette at The IndExpo which prompted us to seek an interview with Bernard Daines. Mayor Billings mentioned World Wide Packets as the technology provider for iProvo. We were informed that Mr. Daines is no longer part of the company, but that Barry Kantner was a willing subject.

Barry Kantner is World Wide Packets' Vice President of Marketing. He's been in the telecommuncations and networking industry for more than 20 years.

Like the other interviews in this series, the interview that follows was conducted via email. Some of it is a little jargon-laden, but there is also a good bit of information that is relevant to the discussions that should be taking place in Lafayette regarding the shape and structure of the LUS fiber to the premises project.

Question: What is World Wide Packets and what does the company do?

Barry Kantner: World Wide Packets is the pioneering solutions provider for Ethernet broadband Fiber to the Subscriber™ connectivity. The company’s solution is deployed in broadband fiber access networks around the world including North America, Europe, Middle East, and Asia. The company has built a significant beachhead within the municipality and utility markets while developing a growing customer base with Multiple Service Operator, Competitive Local Exchange Carrier, Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier and Greenfield developers. World Wide Packets’ LightningEdge® solution enables the delivery of simultaneous telephony, business and entertainment video, broadband data, and Internet access services, to any combination of business and residential subscribers, using Ethernet over fiber and copper media.

Q: Could you describe the basic technology that is the core of that network? Is it all Internet Protocol based?

Kantner: The LightningEdge solution leverages the low-cost and bandwidth scalability provided by Ethernet. Ethernet is a Layer 2 technology that is transparent to higher layer protocols such as Internet Protocol (IP), and enables significant operating expense reductions as compared to higher layer network technologies. Ethernet alone is not sufficient to enable multiple services with their own Quality of Service guarantee, or the resiliency required to provide carrier-class availability. The LightningEdge solution provides the most important characteristics of circuit-switched solutions—control, reliability, and service quality—with the unmatched cost performance and scalability of Ethernet. This unique, fully standards based, combination, makes possible the delivery of a full range of applications and content over a common service delivery infrastructure, increasing revenue generation and accelerating the payback period on its customers’ investments. The flexible design of the LightningEdge access solution provides its customers with the lowest cost-per-bit infrastructure on the market and the ability to scale capital investments in line with subscriber acquisition, while enabling increased revenue opportunities through the deployment of new integrated services and applications.

Q: What will the services available to Provo residents via this network include?

Kantner: iProvo, the City of Provo’s broadband access network, is being built as an Open Access network. iProvo will serve as the wholesale transport provider while multiple retail providers will offer a variety of services, including high speed Internet access, all-distance telephone, Video on Demand, broadcast and entertainment video, to both business and residential subscribers. The LightningEdge solution has been specifically designed to provide both the network infrastructure operator, and each content provider with the ability to independently manage and control their own portions of the access network, which greatly increases customer support and satisfaction.

While the initial services the businesses and residents of Provo will be able to use are world-class, the really exciting services are the ones that have yet to be invented. The LightningEdge network provides fully symmetrical (same speed from the subscriber to the network, and from the network to the subscriber) 100 Mb/s or 1,000 Mb/s connections to every subscriber. This bandwidth, coupled with the ability to support and guarantee the delivery of any combination of voice, video, and data, present the opportunity for the creation of entirely new services and applications that simply are not possible today mainly due to the limitations associated with existing access networks. In addition to the potential for these new applications to increase productivity, they can also drive significant economic growth by creating new businesses within the footprint of the iProvo network focused on the development of these applications.

Q: The company seems to have found some success working with municipalities building their own fiber networks. Is there something about the company's approach to network technology that is winning this work, or are there other factors?

Kantner: World Wide Packets delivered the first LightningEdge solution in 2001. The LightningEdge solution was purpose-designed to support what has become known today as the triple play – voice, video, and data – service delivery. The early adopters of the LightningEdge solution were municipalities and utilities within North America that shared a vision of driving economic growth and diversity by being able to deliver any service, to any subscriber – business or residential – within the entire community. In addition to the LightningEdge solution being purpose-designed, World Wide Packets has developed deep domain expertise that encompasses the entire scope of effort that is required to successfully plan, finance, deploy and support a broadband service delivery infrastructure.

Q: How many municipal networks have World Wide Packets technology at their core?

Kantner: More than forty municipalities around the world have selected and deployed World Wide Packets LightningEdge solution for their broadband service networks.

Q: The founder of your company, Bernard Daines, was a fierce defender of Internet Protocol and Ethernet approaches to network building. Is that still the focus of the company's technological orientation? If so, why is that? If not, what drove the change?

Kantner: When the company was founded in January 2000, there were many skeptics that questioned the viability of using Ethernet to support large-scale multi-service broadband access networks. Today, Ethernet is recognized as one of the best broadband access technologies, and is quickly becoming the dominant access technology for all types of providers. The foundation of the LightningEdge solution has consistently been based on Ethernet since inception, though it is important to note that Ethernet alone, such as Enterprise-based solutions, does not meet all the requirements necessary to provide the most cost-effective and scalable broadband service delivery infrastructure. World Wide Packets has added considerable capabilities to Ethernet to enable the solution to support explicit Quality of Service for every application, resiliency and full manageability to minimize ongoing operational expenses. We have done this in a way that enables full compliance and interoperability with other standard-based solutions, but when deployed as a complete access solution, enables capabilities not available from Enterprise Ethernet solutions, or other competing technologies.

Q: Does the fact that municipal networks are new and not encumbered by legacy technologies such as those of phone and cable companies give those municipal networks certain advantages not available to those of incumbent service providers?

Kantner: What provides an advantage to any operator is deploying a solution that supports delivery of any service or bundle of services, to any number of subscribers within a geographic area, in the most cost-efficient manner, and with the ability of the network to scale the number of subscribers and bandwidth required to support the applications with linear cost. The LightningEdge solution has been designed specifically around these needs and provides these benefits to new deployments as well as operators with legacy network infrastructure.

Q: There seems to be a general technological shift underway in networks — including those of phone and cable companies — away from centralized and intelligent networks towards Internet Protocol based networks. Is all network traffic shifting to Internet Protocol?

Kantner: The mix of subscriber traffic has dramatically shifted toward packet-based applications over the last few years. Packet-based network technology has always provided the most efficient utilization of bandwidth for bursty data applications like Internet access and corporate Local Area Network interconnection, and has become the dominant technology deployed by Enterprise customers. However, Enterprise packet-based platforms were not designed to support the strict requirements of real-time latency sensitive traffic such as voice (including voice over IP) and video. As a result, network operators have deployed numerous technology-specific networks including circuit (based on SONET or SDH Time Division Multiplexing technology), Frame Relay, ATM, and IP. Each individual, network provides a set of capabilities optimized for a certain class of subscriber traffic, but results in very high total operating cost for the operator.

An ever-growing number of network operators have selected and are rapidly deploying core network platforms based on Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS). MPLS platforms have been designed to support both packet-based and real-time latency sensitive traffic, and are being deployed to “converge” multiple networks into one unified packet-based transport network. Converging multiple networks to one results in dramatically lower overall operating cost and a core network infrastructure capable of extending converged services directly to subscribers, both of which further contribute to packet-based traffic growth.

Q: Mayor Lewis Billings of Provo, Utah, visited Lafayette recently to speak about the iProvo project. What is World Wide Packets' role in that project? How did you get the work?

Kantner: World Wide Packets has been proud to be a partner with Provo for more than three years. Our involvement with Provo began as a commitment to fully support Provo’s validation of all aspects of a broadband service delivery infrastructure to include network design, planning and cost-optimization, construction and fiber deployment techniques, voice, video, video on demand, data and Internet access application support infrastructure, and the validation of the best access network technology to deploy. The rigorous and detailed testing Provo has completed has resulted in one of the worlds most sophisticated and efficient broadband access infrastructures. Provo has taken on an ambassador’s role, graciously hosting municipalities and service providers from all over the world to showcase the capabilities of what they have built and the opportunities the network has brought to the City.

Q: How does your company anticipate bandwidth demands changing over time. What is a baseline speed now? 5 years out? 10 Years? Even 20? How is your company preparing for this fast future?

Kantner: Like increased hard-disk capacity and computer memory size, increases in the amount and control of the bandwidth that is delivered to the subscribers enable the creation of new generations of applications that run faster, improve productivity, and spawn the demand for even more advanced applications. In most parts of the world today, the demand for bandwidth is much more advanced than the ability to supply it. Specifically in the United States, the deployment of higher bandwidth infrastructure is only now starting to meet the needs of faster Internet access with DSL and cable modem services providing up to 3 or 4 Mb/s download speeds, but typically much less than 1 Mb/s upload speeds. These rates are insufficient in most cases to deliver even the current generation of integrated voice, video and data applications or enable the creation of new classes of applications that require higher bandwidth and bandwidth control.

Today, the LightningEdge solution provides dedicated and symmetrical 100 Mb/s or 1,000 Mb/s connections to every subscriber, easily supporting the simultaneous delivery of any combination of voice, video, or data applications today, while enabling the creation of an entirely new set of applications that just are not possible over lesser technologies.

One of the reasons World Wide Packets selected Ethernet as the foundation for the LightningEdge solution is because Ethernet is the most cost-effective and scalable standard-based technology available. In addition to 100 Mb/s and 1,000 Mb/s Ethernet components, 10,000 Mb/s components are also available and widely deployed. The international standard body responsible for Ethernet is currently working on 40,000 Mb/s Ethernet, and even higher speeds are possible. The scalability and widespread adoption of Ethernet permits World Wide Packets to evolve the LightningEdge solution to support higher speeds as the network and applications evolve, without a change in the platform architecture or the need to obsolete the current infrastructure investment.