ntl:Telewest Business IPVPN in a class of its own with
eight Classes of Service
- Class of Service offering extended
from four to eight – more than any other UK network
provider
- New services enable customers to
apply far more sophisticated prioritisation to key data, voice and video
traffic
- Enhanced Classes of Service in particular demand by
larger customers using Ethernet circuits
28 January, 2008. ntl:Telewest
Business, part of the Virgin Media group, today enhanced its
converged solutions to provide eight Classes of Services across its
IPVPN portfolio. ntl:Telewest Business now offers greater Class of
Service choice than any other UK communications provider*.
The new Class of Service offering is available
immediately on all dedicated ntl:Telewest Business IPVPN services,
which range in speed from 64 Kilobits-per-second (kbps) to 1
Gigabit-per-second (Gbps). Demand for greater granularity of
traffic prioritisation is being driven by large corporate and
public sector organisations in particular. Many of these
organisations use ntl:Telewest Business’ own Ethernet circuits to access the IPVPN service,
and these access options have been available nation-wide since
November 2006.
Having eight Classes of Service enables
organisations to ring-fence their most critical network traffic,
such as the data created by different types of core business
management systems, from other less crucial traffic.
“We have turned up the heat in the UK business
communications sector by taking Class of Service to a new level,”
said Stephen Beynon, MD of ntl:Telewest Business. “Communications
are the lifeblood of the modern organisation and customers
increasingly want highly specific prioritisation of their network
traffic.
* Based on Market intelligence available from
Current Analysis
“With eight Classes of Service we enable them
to assign higher priorities to the likes of video and core business
management applications than email and web browsing traffic. This
puts customers in much greater control of how their information is
carried over networks, depending on its importance,” said Mr
Beynon.
The eight Classes of Service are:
- Real Time 1: Voice media (real time). These are typically
variable rate ‘inelastic’ applications that require low jitter and
loss, plus very low delay. Normally these are Voice over IP (VoIP)
and sensitive video applications that do not have the ability to
change encoding rates, or to mark packets with different importance
indications.
- Real Time 2: Video media (real time). This is recommended for
delay-sensitive and jitter-sensitive video applications such as
IPCCTV.
- Customer Control: This is best suited for peer-to-peer and
client-server signalling and control functions, using protocols
such as SIP, SIP-T, H.323, H.248 and Media Gateway Control Protocol
(MGCP).
- Application 1: Multimedia video conferencing, which are not
purely real-time in nature, or business-critical applications.
- Application 2, 3 and 4: Business-critical applications. These
three classes are best suited for applications that require
bandwidth and loss guarantees but have a reasonable level of
tolerance for jitter and latency. The application classes are
equivalent to each other in terms of priority; however each can be
guaranteed bandwidth independently of one other.
- Standard: The Standard service class is for applications that
have not been identified as requiring differentiated treatment and
is often referred to as best effort.
Notes to the editor:
About ntl:Telewest Business
ntl:Telewest Business, part of the UK’s second
largest fixed-line telecommunications company, is a leading
communications provider to businesses, public sector organisations
and service providers in the UK. It delivers a complete portfolio
of voice, data and internet solutions nation-wide.
ntl:Telewest Business sales and support
teams are located across the UK, in close proximity to our
customers, as part of a commitment to deliver superior customer
service. ntl:Telewest Business delivers services over the
Group’s £13bn investment in its state-of-the-art infrastructure
giving business customers access to the largest alternative network
in the UK.
ntl:Telewest Business is trusted to provide
critical communications to high profile customers
including: Heathrow's Terminal 5, Birmingham City Council and
Cambridgeshire County Council.
For further information go to http://www.ntltelewestbusiness.co.uk/
Sara
Doggett
ntl:Telewest
Business
T: 01256
753101
E:
sara.doggett@virginmedia.co.uk
Sophie Jarvis, Press Office
Rainier PR
T: 020 7494 6598
E: sjarvis@rainierpr.co.uk