Kentucky Data Link Deploys Cisco ONS 15600 to Increase Provisioning Speed and Operational Efficiencies across the Network

SAN JOSE, Calif., February 23, 2004 - Kentucky Data Link today announced their deployment of the Cisco ONS 15600 MSSP as a part of their wholesale long haul fiber network, which spans more than 3,000 route miles. The Cisco ONS 15600 will help enable KDL to increase the provisioning speed of their network, allowing faster service delivery times to their customers.

Installing a single Cisco ONS 15600 MSSP will allow KDL to redeploy racks of multiple Cisco ONS 15454s to new opportunities at the network edge. The consolidation of multiple ONS 15454s into a single ONS 15600 increased the available floor space and substantially reduced power consumption. The Cisco ONS 15600 MSSP allows for existing ONS 15454 customers to consolidate network growth due to the ONS 15600's switching capacity being nearly six times the size of the ONS 15454 in only one-third of the space used by a full rack of ONS 15454s. Due to its industry-leading optical port density of 16 2.5Gb/s ports per card, provisioning a new ring is as simple as lighting two new ports, avoiding purchasing an entirely new line card.

"We chose to deploy Cisco's ONS 15600 MSSP primarily because of the realization of operational and capital savings to our network. It is the only product that is fully interoperable with our existing Cisco ONS 15454 network for Unidirectional Path Switched Ring (UPSR) and Bidirectional Line Switched Rings (BLSR). The Cisco ONS 15600 provides a simplified network architecture and faster provisioning times integrated with our existing ONS 15454 protection schemes," said James R. Collins, vice president of operations, Kentucky Data Link. "Also, we are able to scale our network much more quickly and easily than before because it isn't necessary to purchase additional hardware to increase density. With 128 ports of 2.5 Gigabits, to add a new ring we only have to install new equipment on the network edge, without adding new cards and shelves to the ONS 15600. Since it supports multiple rings of 2 Fiber BLSR or 64 rings of UPSR on a port-by-port basis, we are not limited to our protection choices."

"Because of commonalities between the Cisco ONS 15600 and the Cisco ONS 15454, technicians are able to quickly learn to turn up and provision the Cisco ONS 15600 when it is added to the network," added Collins.

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