France Telecom is the first European telecom operator to connect its points
of presence (POP) to the national switchboards.
This move brings many advantages such as cheaper Net access for consumers
and new vocal technology service offerings that will soon be available on the
national IP network.
Previously, French users would contact the local loop provided by France
Telecom, which allowed them to call the closest POP.
In six months, the IP 2000 program will allow the IP node to be
directly integrated to the telephone
exchanges.
“We have abandoned the point-to-point logic, and we are
moving towards a logic which uses several points,” says Jean-Yves Bouchet,
attaché at France-Telecom.
This new network will allow the ISPs to connect straight to the
national telephone exchanges.
“According to France Telecom, IP telephony is likely to overcome classical
RTC telephony in the years to
come” says Bouchet.
A straight connection to the telephone exchanges will
thus allow the French
operator to deploy IP vocal services in France very quickly.
IP2000 will also enable an access to the local loop via ADSL. France
Telecom announced throughputs
which range from 155 megabytes to 2.5 gigabytes per second for the IP2000
network. The throughputs
on the local loop will reach 1 megabyte per second, with a maximum of 8
Megabytes per second.
This national network will be connected to Europe via the European Backbone
Network, a high-speed
network which will connect the largest European cities. It
enables 80 Gigabyte per second
for each main branch, but it can be extended to 1,2 Terabyte per second.
This network is already working
in cities such as Geneva, Paris and London. Spain
will be added to the list by next month.
