News Briefs November 2005

Stealth Communications has launched its Voice Peering Fabric at the Bandwidth Exchange Buildings, a carrier hotel, in St. Louis. The Voice Peering Fabric is a distributed Ethernet network that functions as an exchange or meet-point for VoIP traffic. It is a private voice Internet allowing enterprises and service providers to establish peer-to-peer connections in a secure environment. The Bandwidth Exchange Buildings newly deployed Voice Peering Fabric node enables facility tenants to access the ENUM Registry, as well as send and receive free phone calls with ENUM Registry members. In other news, XO Communications Inc. has interconnected with Stealths VPF. For VPF members that need to deliver VoIP calls to the PSTN, XO will be able to offer VoIP origination and termination services nationwide through the VPF. By handing off VoIP traffic directly to XO, VPF members traffic will be routed across the XO IP network and terminated to the PSTN at destinations across the United States.

By expanding its presence in carrier hotels at 60 Hudson and 111 8th Ave. in New York City, Switch and Data, an exchange and neutral colocation provider, expects to become the largest interconnection provider to telecom carriers, content providers, ISPs, VoIP providers and enterprises in the market. The company now provides interconnection to more than 330 distinct networks. Switch and Data also is the first neutral interconnection provider to provide Layer 1 and Layer 2 connectivity among top carrier hotels on the East Coast, 60 Hudson St. and 111 8th Ave.

Ntera is promoting its wholesale origination and termination services through a deal with its equipment supplier, Excel Switching Corp. The carrier is offering up to $5,600 of free termination services for service providers purchasing Excel Integrated Media Gateway 1010. The promotional offer expires Dec. 31, 2006.

InfiniRoute Networks Inc., provider of managed VoIP peering services for wireline and wireless carriers, has opened its Latin America sales office in Miami. The company recently moved its headquarters from San Francisco to Princeton, N.J., and will use the Miami office to focus on the growing VoIP peering market for carriers in the Americas. The wholesaler also has appointed William Staffeld as vice president, Americas Region, business development and sales. He will manage the Miami office and oversee sales efforts in the Latin American region.

Equinix Inc., provider of network-neutral data centers and Internet exchange services, is buying a new data center in the Los Angeles area. The El Segundo building is Equinixs third IBX center in the region, and is interconnected to Equinixs downtown Los Angeles IBX centers through redundant dark fiber links managed by Equinix. The interconnection fabric gives occupants in each center direct access to each other as if they were in the same location, and provides immediate access to the more than 85 networks operating within Equinixs Los Angeles IBX. The colocation company earlier this year expanded in the Chicago and Silicon Valley markets.

Minutes trader Arbinet-thexchange Inc. has expanded its exchange infrastructure and regional support in Hong Kong by activating a switch in the Sino Favour Center allowing members to trade with other world markets without making large investments in infrastructure or workers. Arbinets Asia membership includes Japan Telecom, KDD, New World Telecommunications and Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company. Arbinet also has doubled capacity between its Hong Kong and Los Angeles exchange delivery points to support trading between those cities.