EarthLink and Foundry Networks Partner to Boost Internet Services Through Compact, Affordable, and Scalable Platform

Strategic Insights -

EarthLink, one of the nation's largest service providers, is leveraging a joint marketing agreement with Foundry Networks to deliver high-performance Internet services to thousands of new customers. By combining Tiara's Access Concentrators with Foundry's Layer 3 Switches, EarthLink is able to cost-effectively expand its network and provide multimegabit Internet access to new areas, reduce backhaul costs, and deliver value-added services to its customers.

Key Takeaways:

  • The partnership between EarthLink and Foundry Networks enables the delivery of high-performance Internet services to thousands of new customers.
  • The combination of Tiara's Access Concentrators and Foundry's Layer 3 Switches provides a compact, affordable, and scalable platform for service aggregation and Internet traffic routing.
  • EarthLink is using the Foundry and Tiara combination in its points of presence (POPs) to cost-effectively expand its network and deliver multimegabit Internet access to new areas.
  • The partnership between Foundry and Tiara Networks provides a joint marketing agreement to offer integrated solutions that meet the needs of service providers seeking to rapidly expand their networks and deliver high-performance, value-added services.
  • Tiara's 6000 Series POP Access Concentrator offers the highest service aggregation, with the ability to aggregate T1, fractional T1, and NxT1 circuits using various protocols.
  • Foundry's BigIron family of Layer 3 switches offers unrivaled switching capacity, scalability, and access flexibility, with interfaces ranging from 10/100 Ethernet up to Gigabit Ethernet.
  • The FastIron Workgroup switch is the ideal solution for providing multiple Internet connections in a multi-tenant building, serving up to 24 10/100 Base-T Ethernet connections.
  • The ServerIronXL Internet traffic and content management switch allows service provider network managers to improve quality of service and reduce bandwidth costs by forwarding Web traffic to local and remote cache servers.

Statistics:

  • EarthLink serves over 3.46 million individuals and businesses every day (Source: EarthLink).
  • Foundry products are installed in the world's largest ISPs, including AOL, AT&T WorldNet, MSN, and Cable & Wireless (Source: Foundry Networks).
  • The BigIron family of Layer 3 switches has a switching capacity of up to 178,000,000 packets per second (Source: Foundry Networks).
  • The Tiara 6200 Access Concentrator provides Internet access up to 16 T1 lines (Source: Tiara Networks).
  • Foundry products are also installed in large enterprise, entertainment, pharmaceutical, and manufacturing companies, as well as search engines, e-commerce sites, universities, and government organizations (Source: Foundry Networks).

Sources:

  • "EarthLink Combines Tiara's Access Concentrators with Foundry's Layer 3 Switches to Boost POP Aggregation While Slashing Costs" (Business Wire, June 6, 2000).
  • Foundry Networks (www.foundrynetworks.com).
  • Tiara Networks (www.tiaranetworks.com).
  • EarthLink (www.earthlink.net).