Time Warner Connects with Juniper

Seeking additional enterprise customers, Time Warner Telecom is extending its metro Ethernet services using Juniper’s
M-series routers.

The equipment allows the carrier’s business customers with operations in
different U.S. cities to function as though they are on the same
Ethernet-based local area network.

“The M-series enables us to deliver the full suite of VPN services on a
single platform, which saves both capital and operational expenditures
because it is unnecessary to deploy separate edge devices for each VPN
service,” Graham Taylor, Time Warner Telecom’s senior vice president of
marketing, said in a statement.

First Citizens Bank is the first customer. It’s using the service to connect
its branch in Charlotte, N.C., a back-office location in Columbia, S.C.,
and its Raleigh, N.C. headquarters. With it, employees can zip financial
data among the three locations over 10 Mbps and 20 Mbps Ethernet ports.

Time Warner Telecom’s service is now available in the 44 U.S. markets that
the company serves with its fiber networks.

Citing company policy, Juniper Spokeswoman Susan Ursch declined to say how
many routers were ordered or what the value of the deal was.

Time Warner Telecom has been a Juniper customer for about four years, she
said. Other customers using the M-series routers include BellSouth .

For Juniper, the announcement comes during a week when it posted strong
second-quarter financial results and offered an upbeat forecast.

Overall the network equipment sector is experiencing a resurgence after two
down years. Wireline carriers are in the process of converging networks to
handle voice and data on the same systems, enabling Voice over Internet
Protocol and other services.

Similarly, wireless carriers are bolstering their infrastructure to boost
bandwidth, making it possible for mobile phone users to enjoy fast
transfers of voice, data and video.

In a recent research note, SG Cowen & Co. analyst Christin Armacost expects
good second-quarter results throughout much of the sector. Other big names,
like Juniper rival Cisco Systems , have not yet released
results.

“We believe the networking sector is on track to slightly exceed
(expectations) in Q2,” she wrote.