Introduction

Throughout the 70s, 80s, and early 90s businesses used highly reliable (deterministic) and secure private networks to deliver their services from companies such as The IBM Information Network and the GE Information Services Network. These networks provided the peace of mind that information was protected by SLAs with the assurance that the data would get to its destination on time without being compromised. Although these private business networks were expensive (in relation to the Internet), they always worked. In the 90s, with the advent of the Internet, many more options and possibilities developed at what appeared to be lower cost. However, reliability and security over the Internet is a problem. Interestingly, many companies emerged with fee based technologies and services to resolve this problem that previously existed in the private networks. Even with these new Internet technologies, reliability and security remains a problem for some services.

By 2004 over 50% of ILEC and CLEC Companies offered DSL Broadband service to the customer premise mainly to provide Internet services. In recent years those Broadband services have increased to provide Video and Voice (VoIP) services over the Internet known as the “Triple Play”. However, the ILECs are capable of much more. Utilizing an Entry Point iNID, existing protocols (ATM/DSL), and infrastructure (copper pairs) ILECs can provide what many of these services require – a network that is highly reliable, available and secure.