Managed Services for Enterprise

Charter Communications began as a cable provider in 1993. Today, it is a Fortune 500 company with a diversified portfolio of advanced digital networking services for consumers and business customers. Charter Business provides a wide range of business-to-business video, data, and IP solutions for businesses throughout the United States. Although demand for economical advanced data networking services is rapidly accelerating among companies across the U.S., organizations outside of major markets (New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and Dallas, for example), often find it difficult to locate reliable, flexible networking services. Charter Business is one of the few service providers with a range of highly flexible, reliable data networking offerings and outstanding customer service for all sizes of customers.

The company is building out its network across the country using high-capacity fiber optic transport connections for Internet and point-to-point communications. Many of the company's existing and target customers already rely on networking solutions from Cisco Systems® and look to Charter Business to provide a range of solutions, including virtual private networks (VPNs), Metro Ethernet, Internet access, LAN extension, remote teleworker access, and point-to-multipoint networking connectivity.

"A portion of Charter's network is a Cisco® Powered Network," says Pete Hicks, director of marketing for Charter Business. "As such, we can provide our customers with a stable, consistent, end-to-end networking solution. We have high credibility with customers and an enhanced ability to win business and be successful."

Charter's criteria for its network expansion included the ability to deliver Ethernet-based services over fiber. Scalability was another important consideration because the company's goal is to replicate network infrastructure across multiple markets. The company viewed Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) as a valuable tool that would allow it to more easily scale and manage a network that spanned multiple markets. In addition, Charter wanted to use Layer 2 virtual LAN (VLAN) features to simplify network management while enabling service customization. Together, MPLS and VLAN capabilities would help Charter offer a consistent set of services across markets, customize offerings to meet specific customer needs, and gain a market advantage over less flexible competitors. With fiber connectivity and the right networking solution, Charter could sell bandwidth in reasonable increments, scale capacity as required, and bill appropriately for the bandwidth actually delivered. Charter chose a Cisco Metro Ethernet solution. This solution enables a flexible, service-driven network with built-in service richness that supports delivery of profitable, differentiated services. A Cisco Metro Ethernet solution also supports a wide range of end-customer and transport environments with industry-leading technology, such as MPLS and high-availability features.

Actual network configurations vary between markets, but each market uses an OC-48 (2.488 Gbps) SONET ring. Many markets also employ dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) technology to connect local Charter headends. Each headend contains one or more Cisco ONS 15454 multiservice provisioning platforms (MSPPs) and Gigabit Ethernet technology. For customers that require TDM connections, Cisco ONS 15327 MSPP systems are deployed. Cisco 7600 Series routers are used for aggregating customer traffic across Charter's regional metro areas. In some locations where only fiber transport is available, Charter deploys Cisco 7600 Series Routers that connect to a media converter to deliver services over coarse wavelength-division multiplex (CWDM) or DWDM optical channels at headend and/or primary hub locations.

The Cisco Catalyst 3750 Metro Series switches are multilayer switches that feature hierarchical quality of service (QoS) and traffic shaping, VLAN mapping, MPLS, and Ethernet-over-MPLS (EoMPLS) support. The Cisco Catalyst 3750 Metro Series switches can also provide redundant Ethernet channels which, when combined with Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP) in the Cisco 7600 Series Router, enable EoMPLS for delivering converged services. Metro Ethernet links also connect multiple customer locations.

Cisco MPLS capabilities are deployed in select markets, where they allow Charter to logically associate coaxial cable and fiber endpoints and simplify management of customers' services. For example, using MPLS allows Charter to minimize the amount of equipment to be installed to connect a customer's multiple sites at a Layer 3 level. With MPLS features, Charter can remotely associate a given endpoint with another set of VPN clients, creating a meshed customer network that can be configured, changed, and managed from the core Charter network.

Thanks to the Cisco Metro Ethernet solution, Charter can deliver point-to-multipoint Ethernet LAN extension services. For customers requiring connectivity between multiple sites, Charter can deploy Metro Ethernet links, ranging from 10 Mbps to 1 Gbps, and provide multipoint connectivity that is virtually transparent to the customer. Customers can connect their own Cisco routers to the Charter-provided Cisco Catalyst 3750 Metro Ethernet Switch. Virtual LAN capabilities built into Cisco Catalyst 3750 Metro Ethernet Switch enable Charter to tag traffic at one customer location and route it over Layer 2 through the network to the customer's other locations.

"Charter Communications is a broadband communications company providing a full range of advanced services to the home and business. The Cisco Catalyst 3750 Metro Series switches, in particular, allow us to offer a wide range of Layer 2, Layer 3, and MPLS solutions to our customers from a single platform. That, in turn, allows us to save operational costs as well as capital expenditures," says Sean Daugherty of Charter Communications, Inc., Western Division.

The Cisco Metro Ethernet solution and MPLS features offer an important network management advantage that helps companies improve competitive advantage. With this powerful solution, Charter can cost-effectively combine multiple customer sites of different sizes into a transparent network solution. Charter can implement security features, such as IP Security (IPSec) in its core network, eliminating the need for a customer to implement its own IPSec solution. Eventually, MPLS intelligence in the Charter network will automatically ensure the integrity of customer traffic flows without having to manage individual endpoints, and allow operations staff to quickly and easily respond to configuration changes, add sites, upgrade bandwidth, and eliminate costly service calls and truck rolls to customer locations.

The deployment has provided Charter with additional competitive advantages as well. Sales representatives have more flexibility for tailoring bandwidth packages. Point-to-point and point-to-multipoint capabilities allow customers to easily connect multiple sites without having to purchase equipment for each location, thereby avoiding significant capital expenditures. Charter can also accommodate customers with variable bandwidth needs. For example, a national catalog retailer experiences large seasonal swings in demand. They needed a 50-Mbps connection between two locations - but only for part of the year. Charter was able to provide a package that delivers 5 Mbps for six months and then upgrades the bandwidth to 10 Mbps for the rest of the year.

"That's the kind of flexibility we can offer our customers that other providers are unable to do," says Hicks. "The Cisco Metro Ethernet solution and MPLS features will help enable us to eventually offer this high level of flexibility across all of our markets." And because many of Charter's networks are Cisco Powered Networks, Charter Business customers can enjoy high network availability, fast deployment of new services, and ease of operability with their existing Cisco equipment.

Another Charter Business customer, the University of Wisconsin Medical Foundation (UWMF), chose Charter to provide it with a new fiber optic WAN. The Charter network will help UWMF streamline its network infrastructure while helping ensure that bandwidth-intensive medical applications receive the bandwidth they need for high performance.

"Charter was the only company that could cost-effectively deliver the amount of bandwidth we needed," said Mike Rosencrance, Vice President of Information Services for UWMF. "We have several IT initiatives that will place an ever-increasing load on our network infrastructure. Charter has provided us with a single-vendor, end-to-end solution that allows us to eliminate worries about bandwidth capacity."

Charter Business continues to deploy Cisco Metro Ethernet solutions across its markets and plans to standardize its MPLS deployments and products through 2006. With flexible Metro Ethernet solutions from Cisco underlying its managed services, Charter is successfully delivering large-market, leading-edge networking services across the United States.

To learn more about Cisco routing solutions, visit: www.cisco.com/go/routing.

To learn more about Cisco switching solutions, visit: www.cisco.com/go/switching.

To learn more about Cisco Metro Ethernet solutions, visit: www.cisco.com/go/metro.

To learn more about Charter Business, visit: www.charter-business.com.