Bring Your Own Bandwidth ‘BYOB’ managed with hardware

This is where a customer wishes to connect their network to Fuze but is with a network provider that is not one of the carrier partners that Fuze has a relationship with (and hence no NNI connectivity). There are circumstances where a network operator will insist on providing a device to serve as a termination or demarcation point (could be a router or a switch) between their network and Fuze. In reality, what is happening is the customers network provider installs another MPLS circuit location, often referred to as a spoke (like in a wheel) but in this instance the delivery location for the circuit is not a customer office premises but a datacentre. This poses additional problems since as of end of 2017 Fuze has no facilities which can host third party hardware and hence hosting hardware is an expensive and least favourable option for network connectivity and should be a last resort as Fuze must facilitate this through a third party provider Epsilontel who can host hardware in a limited number of locations globally.

There are regional variations on how the interconnection process is established. The three regions are currently separated into USA, EMEA and APAC. Fuze has a relationship with EpsilonTel to provide the virtual point of presence to the Fuze network and a limited number of locations where hardware can be accommodated.

Carrier NNI – USA Key Facts

• Fuze has NNIs with GTT in East and West Coast PoPs – BOS and SFO.
• An NNI can be partitioned into separate connections known as VLANs. Each VLAN within the NNI is unique and separate from the other VLANs.
• There are two scenarios possible with Carrier NNI:-

1. Customer is already with GTT and wishes to extend (connect) their GTT provided network to Fuze.

• Fuze will arrange with GTT to extend the customer network across a logical connection on each NNI. This means there is geographical redundancy for the customer connection shown as Path A and Path B on the diagram on page 5. There will be SKUs to book for this which will cover the Fuze provisioning and network costs.

2. Customer is ordering GTT MPLS premise circuits through Fuze for the purposes of offering dedicated circuits for Fuze voice service.

• Fuze will order the premise circuits with GTT and as part of this process GTT will extend this network across a new logical connection (VLAN) on each NNI.
  This means there is geographical redundancy for the customer connection shown as Path A and Path B on the diagram on page 5. There will be SKUs to book for this which will cover the Fuze provisioning and network costs PLUS there will be SKUs associated with the premise circuit costs.

Carrier NNI – USA SKU and Pricing

GTT extending network only. (Note: This is where the customer already has MPLS circuits with GTT and extending this network to Fuze)

There will be network side SKUs chargeable for the installation cost and monthly service fee. In addition, because GTT are not gaining any circuit revenue they will levy a bandwidth cost so the monthly service fee will cover this charge. The monthly bandwidth costs are included in the SKU.

SKU:  VCX-NW-MR-MPLSAX-BW-USA

SKU Description in portal: ‘Bandwidth charge for MPLS carrier NNI USA region’

Covers: The install and monthly network related charges for the TWO logical connections per region and committed bandwidth. One SKU is booked.

BYOB – USA Key Facts

• Fuze has invested in new infrastructure in the USA to meet the needs of next generation UC.
• Additional Datacentres in Ashburn VA (ASH) and San Jose CA (SJO) have added locations on the East and West Coast in Equinix datatentres. Equinix is now probably the biggest datacentre provider globally.
• Boston and San Francisco datacentres are still very much active but no longer accept third party connections due to the overhead in providing and maintaining the service directly. Therefore, future BYOB requirements will be met via Fuze partners like EpsilonTel, not Fuze directly.
• BYOB as opposed to Carrier NNI requires a cross connect per network being connected, once the connection is made from the customer network provider to EpsilonTel the network is extended across to Fuze via an NNI that is segregated into virtual circuits, one for each unique customer.
• EpsilonTel provide a layer-2 connectivity option therefore if the customer wishes to have connectivity on the East and West coast then there will need to be a cross connect in each of the ASH and SJO locations.

BYOB USA – SKUs and Pricing

There are three SKUs that need to be booked for BYOB;- a cross connect charge, a port charge and a bandwidth charge.

• Cross connect covers the cost of the fibre cross connection between the customer network termination point in the meet-me room
• Port charge covers the cost of the physical port that the cross connect plugs into on the EpsilonTel equipment
• Bandwidth charge covers the cost of the bandwidth consumed within the EpsilonTel network.

BYOB With Hardware – USA Key Facts

• This is the least favourable option for joining a network to Fuze
• BYOB with many network providers entails the provision of a device such as a router or a switch to act as a demarcation/handover point
• The reasons why many network operators insist on installing a hardware device for BYOB are many and varied but usually because they don’t have a specific datacentre product for BYOB so the only alternative is to order an additional MPLS tail into the datacentre, in effect and additional virtual connection for that customer network
• Hardware hosting is increasingly unpopular as it adds an additional piece of hardware that needs to be housed and maintained, in today’s world of cloud connectivity nobody wants devices taking up rack space and consuming power
• Fuze ceased to provide this service at the end of 2017
• This option is very expensive and lead times can be long, it has also been a source of operator and customer frustration since despite datacentres being locations of inter-network connectivity they are not best suited to the provision of circuits usually delivered to customer premise.

EpsilonTel can host hardware on behalf of Fuze in two locations in the USA, these are:

• 60 Hudson Street, NYC
• Coresite Los Angeles.

If a customer is prepared to pay the costs involved to extend their MPLS network to Fuze via the provision of circuit tails with their network provider then they will be required to do the following:

• Order a circuit to each location and the hardware delivery point will be the EpsilonTel rack in that facility.
• Be responsible for their network operator charges for the circuit delivery into the datacentre meet me room (MMR). For 60 Hudson Street in NYC this means the MMR on the 10^th Floor where EpsilonTel is located
• Be charged for the costs for extending the circuit from the MMR to the rack location where the hardware will be housed. These charges will include the cross connects and extending the circuit from the hardware to the EpsilonTel port.
• Be charged for hosting the hardware and costs will be incurred for each rack unit used.
• Be charged for the bandwidth requested from their MPLS network into the EpsilonTel/Fuze network.

It is imperative for the customer to understand from the above that there are extensive costs involved with this method which add a significant overhead into any deal and these costs will not be borne by Fuze.

BYOB USA – SKUs and Pricing

60 Hudson Street, NYC:

There are four SKUs that are to be booked to facilitate an install.

Hardware hosting per rack unit

SKU: VCX-NW-MR-1U-RACK-EPS-NYC

SKU description in portal: ‘Data Centre Rackspace 1U - Epsilon 60 Hudson Street, New York’

Cross connect in MMR on 10th floor

Cross connect SKU: VCX-NW-MR-SMF-EPS-XCONN-NYC

Cross connect SKU description in portal: ‘SMF Cross Connect – 60 Hudson Street, NYC, USA’

Port Access

Port SKU: VCX-NW-SU-EPS-CLX-1G

Port SKU description in portal: ‘Epsilon Cloud Link Exchange (CLX) or standard 1G optical port’

Carrier NNI – EMEA/APAC Key Facts

• Fuze has NNIs with GTT in London and Frankfurt for EMEA, Hong Kong and Sinapore for Asia and Sydney for Australia.
• An NNI can be partitioned into separate connections known as VLANs. Each VLAN within the NNI is unique and separate from the other VLANs.
• There are two scenarios possible with Carrier NNI:

Customer is already with GTT and wishes to extend (connect) their GTT provided network to Fuze.

• Fuze will arrange with GTT to extend the customer network across a logical connection on each NNI. This means there is geographical redundancy for the customer connection shown as Path A and Path B on the diagram on page 5. There will be SKUs to book for this which will cover the Fuze provisioning and network costs.

Customer is ordering GTT MPLS premise circuits through Fuze for the purposes of offering dedicated circuits for Fuze voice service.

• Fuze will order the premise circuits with GTT and as part of this process GTT will extend this network across a new logical connection (VLAN) on each NNI. This means there is geographical redundancy for the customer connection shown as Path A and Path B on the diagram on page 17. There will be SKUs to book for this which will cover the Fuze provisioning and network costs PLUS there will be SKUs associated with the premise circuit costs.

Carrier NNI – EMEA/APAC SKUs and Pricing

GTT extending network only. (Note: This is where the customer already has MPLS circuits with GTT and extending this network to Fuze)

There will be network side SKUs chargeable for the installation cost and monthly service fee. In addition, because GTT are not gaining any circuit revenue they will levy a bandwidth cost so the monthly service fee will cover this charge. The monthly bandwidth costs are included in the SKU.

BYOB – EMEA/APAC Key Facts

• BYOB as opposed to Carrier NNI requires a cross connect per network and location being connected, once the connection is made from the customer network provider to EpsilonTel the network is extended across to Fuze via an NNI that is segregated into virtual circuits, one for each unique customer.
• The PRIMARY locations for BYOB interconnection are:

• EMEA:

• London
• Frankfurt

• APAC:

• Hong Kong
• Singapore
• Sydney

• PRIMARY locations are where Fuze has equipment located in the same datacentre.
• EpsilonTel has PoPs in many datacentres that allows connectivity to other networks which can then be connected to Fuze across the EpsilonTel backbone network. This gives much greater flexibility in how a network can connect to Fuze remotely.

BYOB EMEA/APAC – SKUs and Pricing

There are three SKUs that need to be booked for BYOB: a cross connect charge, a port charge and a bandwidth charge.

• Cross connect covers the cost of the fibre cross connection between the customer network termination point in the meet-me room
• Port charge covers the cost of the physical port that the cross connect plugs into on the EpsilonTel equipment
• Bandwidth charge covers the cost of the bandwidth consumed within the EpsilonTel network.

BYOB with Hardware– EMEA/APAC Key Facts

• BYOB with hardware is restricted to certain EpsilonTel PoPs where they are able to host hardware devices.
• Not every EpsilonTel can host hardware.
• Hosting is on a per rack unit (RU) basis, each RU is chargeable, therefore if a customer desires to use 2RU then they will pay twice the basic SKU price.
• Cross connect and other charges associated with BYOB are still required.

BYOB EMEA/APAC – SKUs and Pricing

There are four SKUs that need to be booked for BYOB with hardware;- a cross connect charge, a port charge, a bandwidth charge and the rack unit hosting charge.

• Cross connect covers the cost of the fibre cross connection between the customer network termination point in the meet-me room, in this instance this is usually where the carrier delivers the physical circuit from their network to or it could be to extend the circuit from the carrier demarcation point to the EpsilonTel rack where the hardware is hosted.
• Port charge covers the cost of the physical port that the cross connect plugs into on the EpsilonTel equipment
• Bandwidth charge covers the cost of the bandwidth consumed within the EpsilonTel network.
• Rack Unit charge covers the cost of hosting the hardware device and is PER RACK UNIT.

BYOB

• A customer who has MPLS with a carrier that is not on-net with Fuze can connect their network to one or both Fuze datacentre locations in a region
• This is a standard technical deployment which involves the provision of a physical MPLS node in each datacentre location
• Each customer is provisioned as a separate VRF/VLAN (this keeps separation from other customers). Cross connect must be single mode fibre and unless agreed otherwise with SC connectors and Fuze expects non-encapsulated (802.1q) Ethernet hand-off
• eBGP4 Peering. QoS is dependent on the customers carrier
• The customer is responsible for the circuit access charges and NO hardware is permitted – This is ‘wires only’
• Maximum of two BGP peering sessions allowed.

BYOB with Hardware. Same rules as for BYOB but in addition:

• The physical hosting if for carrier circuit termination only to facilitate an additional MPLS node on the customer network.
• No additional equipment allowed such as terminal servers, POTS lines etc
• Equipment should be pre-provsioned by the carrier and all interfaces labelled correctly. The install cost covers the mounting of the equipment and providing power and connectivity, the equipment should be plug and play.