SANTIAGO, Chile; June 29, 2005 - Cisco Systems Chile announced that Telmex Chile has selected Cisco products as the basis for the first IP 10 Gigabit Ethernet network in Chile. This Internet Protocol/Multiprotocol Label Switching (IP/MPLS) metropolitan network will cover the Santiago metropolitan area and will incorporate the Cisco ONS 15454 multiservice optical platform, the Cisco 7600 Series routers, and the Catalyst 3750 and 3550 Ethernet switches. The new 10 gigabits per second (gpbs) metropolitan network has a total aggregate capacity of more than 300 gbps.
Telemex Chile expects the new network to bring its clients quality of service, scalability, administered services, high speed and cost efficiency.
"The initiative to build a new network grew out of the demand that was coming from all kinds of clients - not only corporate clients, but also customers in special niches such as education and health, who needed to transport large volumes of information. That hasn't been possible until now," says Rodrigo Herrera, corporate manager of Telmex's business client section.
The implementation of the Cisco 10 gbps network will broaden Telmex's "pipe" grid within the metropolitan area of Santiago and will be used to transmit large quantities of information along different routes.
"The trend is for larger bandwidth requirements," said Herrera. "In the education sector, for example, an institution might have several separate campuses within a specific area, and a 100 megabit connection was too fragile for that. The new network makes applications like remote back-up more economical, higher in capacity and more secure. Bandwidth can be managed more easily and in more detail, by time, user and application. This will allow us to ensure performance of specific applications, like voice over IP and videoconferencing."
Telmex is already working with clients to help them gain from this new infrastructure, and will soon be able to offer a variety of advanced applications in other cities like Valparaíso, Concepción or Temuco, as market growth requires.
Telmex and Cisco: united in innovation
Cisco's culture of advanced innovation and strength as an important supplier made it a natural choice for the project as noted by Jean Paul Jofré, Corporate Manager for Marketing and Products with Telmex, "We are known in the business environment for our commitment to innovation, and our relationship with Cisco is a prime example of this."
Cisco Systems Chile and Telmex began working together in 2001, when Chilesat, which three years later would become part of the Mexican corporation, built the first DWDM and IP MPLS fiber optic network in Latin America, doubling the company's services.
The DWDM network incorporated Cisco long-distance optical transport technology and Cisco Transport Manager software for fault management, configuration, performance and equipment safety. The infrastructure provided 257 times the capacity of the previous network, providing much-needed bandwidth redundancy and allowing the introduction of advanced IP services for Telemex Chile's enterprise customers.
"Since that year, a strong relationship has built up around sales of services based on the new network," said Herrera. "Also, a culture has grown up around a single platform providing multiple private services, in the engineering and sales divisions alike." Herrera said that this technology has catapulted Telmex at least three years ahead of its competition.
"By starting from scratch we received the benefits of a flatter, less layered network that enabled us to offer a broader service portfolio at a lower cost, since it was not burdened with inherited infrastructure from older platforms," said Benjamín Rodríguez, account manager with Cisco Systems Chile. "It had all the scalability and flexibility enabled by the new technologies and none of the limitations imposed by legacy networks."
The first clients on the new network - including the Chilena Consolidada insurance company and Scotia Bank - were familiar with ICT and were keen to sign up, but they also understood the cost benefits. From then on, other firms in the market saw the advantages and began to "climb aboard," said Herrera.
Telmex attributes success of its services to specific attributes of on the DWDM and IP MPLSnetwork, such as service quality, bandwidth management and the option of transporting multiple services across the network. "There is no doubt today that IP MPLS is the foundation technology for multiservice data networks. It is the standard that everyone asks for," said Herrera.
