Nortel Optical Solution Powers ntl Telewest Triple-Play Services
London — ntl Telewest, the UK's largest cable operator and a leading provider of broadband, digital television and telephony, is using a Nortel optical solution to deliver its triple-play of voice, video and data services to residential and enterprise customers in the UK. According to Nortel, its optical solution significantly increases the capability and capacity of ntl Telewest's UK backbone network and helps support the company's newly launched quad-play services including digital TV with video on demand, unlimited broadband, home telephone and mobile services.
Nortel is supplying, deploying and supporting the ntl Telewest enhanced optical network solution, which includes next-generation Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) as a way of maximising the capacity of the optical platform and Nortel Global Services for managing current network traffic and helping deliver additional network capacity for quad-play services.
"Bringing together multiple services — including TV, broadband and fixed-line services — gives our customers unbeatable value and puts them at the forefront of the digital revolution that is transforming entertainment and communications," said ntl Telewest CTO Howard Watson. "Our network backbone has to support our service offers by keeping pace technologically and being cost-effective, flexible, reliable and easy to operate. We selected Nortel for its advanced next-generation optical technology and experience in building and operating networks of this scale. We are developing a highly agile and flexible network that can evolve efficiently and cost-effectively as our business grows."
"Critical to Nortel's success in building high-performance all optical networks is a continuing commitment to innovation and making complex deployments simple for our customers," said Philippe Morin, president Metro Ethernet Networks, Nortel. "Nortel's intelligent optical platforms help enable dynamic communications companies such as ntl Telewest to increase their bandwidth capabilities flexibly and efficiently, thereby enabling them to compete in the next wave of converged mobility and entertainment services."
The DWDM solution for ntl Telewest will leverage its existing Nortel-supplied WDM and SDH networks and management systems. The new solution comprises the Nortel Common Photonic Layer (CPL) and Optical Multiservice Edge (OME) 6500 convergence platform enabling circuit to packet migration. Together, they will simplify aggregation and transit nodes while expanding capacity over an adaptive, intelligent and efficient optical layer. The net result, Nortel claims, is a smooth migration to a reliable and scalable Ethernet infrastructure while maintaining minimal infrastructure costs.
As part of the ntl Telewest network solution Nortel's Global Services is delivering full network integration services including network staging, engineering, implementation and stability testing.
SOURCE: Nortel's Global Services