Sprint customer orders for Ethernet access increased by 60% during 2016 as they sought to accelerate the migration of legacy voice and data networks to global IP/MPLS and SIP trunking. Expanding its coverage and densifying its wireline network will further support an all-IP future and Sprint anticipates providing Ethernet access services to more than 96% of their US customers’ locations by Q1 2017.
“Sprint added more than 1.5m on-net Ethernet buildings from alternate access vendors and added Ethernet coverage to more than 7,000 LEC serving wire centres nationally, giving Sprint the largest Ethernet access footprint in the United States,” said Mike Fitz, president and general manager of the Sprint global wireline business unit.
To support this transition, Sprint added 52 US IP/MPLS nodes in 2016 and plans to add more than 70 nodes this year, which will create more than 220 US IP/MPLS nodes in total. Sprint also built network-to-network interconnections (NNI) with more than 50 ILEC and cable providers.
The migration of voice, data, and video on the same all-IP network, accelerating adoption of cloud services, and mobile workforce are driving enterprises to consider WAN solutions that meet their increasing need for flexibility, performance and security. In October, Sprint announced it plans on launching an SD-WAN solution in early H1 2017.
SD-WAN technology enables enterprises to more efficiently manage corporate networks, optimise performance, and design business policies that improve the customer experience.
“Customers are looking for efficiency and cost-savings,” Fitz said. “The combination of lower-cost Ethernet access options with the inherent cost savings in an SD-WAN solution enable us to provide both.”
