(31 July 2007 6:47 pm)

MUMBAI: Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL) has launched its Dedicated Global Ethernet (DGE) service for the Australia market.

The DGE is a global Ethernet Private Line (EPL) service that allows Australian enterprises to flexibly and cost effectively connect with 120 cities in India plus 20 major business destinations throughout Asia, Europe and North America.

According to an official release, VSNL recently became the first global ethernet provider to have achieved both Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) 9 and MEF 14 certifications verifying conformance to the international Quality of Service (QoS) standard attributes and bandwidth guarantees defined by the MEF.

The company's dedicated global ethernet service employs an ethernet over SDH / SONET platform to ensure low latency and jitter, and high reliability. This scalable, high performance service enables enterprises to economically extend their local area networks to support global video, voice and data transport and to securely and seamlessly send point-to-point traffic between destinations across the world.

This offering complements the company's global ethernet over MPLS (EoMPLS) offering, which provides both point-to-point and hub and spoke services delivered on a fully meshed private MPLS network.

VSNL senior VP Asia Pacific Thomas Tai said, "Our offering is ideal for Australian enterprises, such as those in banking and finance, that require that their mission critical applications are supported by rigorous, industry-tested Quality of Service standards tied to strict SLAs with non-interrupting service upgrades. The service is also perfect for companies seeking to free themselves from the TDM constraints and lack of flexibility associated with International Private Line services."

Enterprises services VP John Landau said, "According to the Australia Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australia is India's eighth largest overseas investor with over $1 billion approved for around 140 joint ventures. Indian investment in Australia is also worth around $1 billion, making Australia the ninth most important destination for Indian foreign direct investment. VSNLs DGE service provides for a more cost-effective and flexible option for Australia-India connectivity, thereby improving telecoms infrastructure which is critical for further enhancing trade ties between the two countries.

DGE offers bandwidth between 2-100 megabits using a Fast-E interface and 50-1000 megabits using a Gig-E interface with the flexibility to upgrade the bandwidth on an as-needed basis without service interruption. The service is supported with a single, end-to-end service level agreement and dedicated global support in every country served. DGE is carried across the company's extensive global and India fiber optic infrastructure, providing unsurpassed circuit quality and capacity.