AT&T Introduces SONET Portfolio Enhancements

AT&T has announced two enhancements to the Synchronous Optical Network service portfolio which will allow both wholesale and retail business customers to converge voice, data and video capabilities over IP-enabled networks.

The two features – Virtual Concatenation (VCAT) service and Arc Sub-ring service – provide flexible use of bandwidth so that businesses can add, increase, mix and manage traffic flows across networks without being forced to add equipment or rearrange their existing services.

VCAT lets users bond Ethernet paths across a dedicated Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) ring without additional equipment. The VCAT features streamline the process for aggregating voice, video and IP traffic from multiple rings and allow SONET customers to allocate bandwidth when it is needed for services such as business continuity and disaster recovery. The Arc Sub-ring feature helps SONET ring customers add new locations through a single connection without affecting the main ring or reconfiguring services such as Ethernet.

Sanford Brown, vice president, connectivity and metro network solutions, said: “Being among the first to deploy VCAT technology across a metro area is one more example of how AT&T continues to provide best-in-class services across our portfolio to meet customers’ bandwidth requirements.”