WHY CHOOSE COX BUSINESS FOR YOUR COMPANY S NETWORK SERVICE NEEDS?

(1)

WHY CHOOSE COX BUSINESS

FOR YOUR COMPANY’S

NETWORK SERVICE NEEDS?

This document provides an overview of the Cox Business portfolio of business networking services and explains why customers should consider Metro Ethernet or IP VPN solutions for their telecommunications needs over those of another service provider.

(2)

BUSINESS NETWORKING SERVICES MARKET IN THE U.S. 3

WHY COX BUSINESS? 4

COX METRO ETHERNET SERVICES 5

COX MPLS IP-VPN SERVICE 7

WHICH SERVICE TO CHOOSE? 11

THE COX BUSINESS ADVANTAGE 12

ACRONYMS 13 CONTACTS 13 REFERENCES 13

(3)

When looking at the Business Networking Services market in the U.S., industry analysts typically divide the market into two segments:

• Ethernet/Metro Ethernet/Carrier Ethernet Services

• MPLS IP-VPN Services (Multiprotocol Label Switching Internet Protocol-Virtual Private Network)

Businesses are purchasing both services in ever increasing amounts and the growth is being driven in part by the migration from traditional packet services, such as Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and Frame Relay (FR) and leased lines — T1, DS3, etc. This shift away from these services is being fueled by the growth in network trafﬁc, as consumers become more mobile in a highly connected and increasingly cloud- based environment. Businesses are increasingly focusing on their core competencies and looking to service providers to help them minimize their Wide Area Networking costs, in an era of ever-increasing bandwidth needs. This is where Cox Business can help.

BUSINESS NETWORKING

(4)

Cox Business has been providing services to commercial customers since the early 1990s when it became the ﬁrst cable MSO to begin delivering business services and wholesale transport to other service providers that resided in its territory.

A $1.5 billion business today, Cox has built a portfolio of Ethernet services serving over 200,000 business customers in Cox markets across the United States, including small businesses, multi-location enterprises, regional healthcare providers and federal, state and local government organizations.

In addition to their established Metro Ethernet Services offering, Cox Business has recently introduced an MPLS IP-VPN Service

offering, thus being able to meet the requirements of any customer. Both services run on Cox Business’s network, which in addition to running over an IP/MPLS core backbone, also employs MPLS all the way out to the customer premises.

(5)

COX METRO ETHERNET SERVICES

Cox Business Metro Ethernet Services provide multi-site customers located in Cox-served areas a highly reliable and scalable network solution that cost-effectively supports the demands for ever-increasing bandwidth. Cox Metro Ethernet Services are Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) Carrier Ethernet 1.0 (CE 1.0) certiﬁed and offer the three most widely deployed services in the Carrier Ethernet marketplace:

• Ethernet Private Line (EPL) — dedicated service that interconnects two remote sites.

• Ethernet Virtual Private Line (EVPL) — multiplexed service that typically interconnects a hub to multiple remote sites.

• Ethernet LAN (ELAN) — meshed service that interconnects multiple remote sites.

Refer to Table 1 on the next page for speciﬁc features of Cox Metro Ethernet Services.

Cox is ranked in the top five Ethernet Providers for U.S. Business Ethernet Services by Vertical Systems Group and is the top Multiple System Operator (MSO) in the list. Additionally, Cox is the first MSO to deploy and launch Ethernet over HFC and currently has several thousand Metro Ethernet ports in service utilizing HFC for access. The use of Ethernet over HFC allows Cox’s customers to benefit from the widespread reach of the existing HFC plant and allows for quick service activation to many office locations, as minimal, if any additional construction is required prior to turning up a new service. Cox also maintains active participation and leadership within both the MEF and CableLabs®_{with the aim of further promoting the growth,} adoption and development of Ethernet services.

(6)

Cox Metro Ethernet Supported Services / Topologies Standard Speeds Class of Service Options* SL As

Ethernet over Fiber

EPL, EVPL, E-L AN

10 Mb to 100 Mb in 10 Mb increments 100 Mb to 1Gb in 100 Mb increments 1 Gb to 10 Gb in 1 Gb increments 150 Mb, 250 Mb Real Time Basic

Availability: 99.99% per site Real Time CoS Per formance Metrics:

Frame Delay (Latency): < 10ms one-way Data Delivery Rate: > 99.9% one-way

Frame Delay Variation (Jitter): < 1ms

*Note: Basic Class of Service is better than Best Effort

TTR: 4 hours for electronic failures 8 hours for cable plant failures

Ethernet over HFC (DOCSIS)

EPL, E-LAN

can only be spoke site in an EVPL topology

256 Kb, 512 Kb, 1 Mb, 2 Mb, 3 Mb, 5 Mb, 10 Mb

(Supported speeds vary by market)

Basic

Availability: 99.9% per site

TABLE 1: COX METRO ETHERNET

SERVICE FEATURES

(7)

COX MPLS IP-VPN SERVICE

Like their Ethernet Services, Cox MPLS IP-VPN Service provides multi-site customers a highly reliable and scalable network solution that cost-effectively supports the demands for ever-increasing bandwidth, while offering a wider variety of access and class of service options. Cox MPLS IP-VPN Service is compliant with Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) RFC 4364, which makes obsolete RFC 2547, and uses the same highly available Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) infrastructure as the Metro Ethernet Services. The use of a converged network infrastructure provides further simpliﬁcation by allowing the use of common Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) for both services, which reduces the equipment cost and at the same time speeds deployment of incremental services (i.e., adding an IP-VPN service to an existing Metro Ethernet requires no additional equipment — just commissioning of the new service). The converged infrastructure will also allow Cox to offer hybrid VPN services such as Metro Ethernet (Layer 2) services at some locations and MPLS IP-VPN (Layer 3) services at other locations for a single customer, in the future. An IP-VPN service is similar to an ELAN service in that it provides a meshed service that interconnects multiple remote sites. The signiﬁcant difference is with an IP-VPN service, the only Layer 3 protocol supported is IP, whereas with ELAN, which is a Layer 2 service, it is protocol transparent — i.e., supports any Layer 3 protocol. This also means that there is interaction at the IP layer between the customer and the provider network — exchange of address information, etc.

(8)

TABLE 2: COX IP-VPN SERVICE

FEATURES

Availability: 99.99% per logical VPN Port (monthly average) TTR: 4 hours for electronic failures

8 hours for cable plant failures

Cox IP-VPN Port Types Standard Speeds Class of Service Options Core Network SLAs Ethernet over HFC (DOCSIS) Standard 512 Kb —10 Mb (Supported speeds vary by market) Priority Data

Ethernet over Fiber

Standard Premium

1 Mb to 10 Gb

Real Time

Interactive

Priority Data Data

Priority Data

Best Effort

See Table 2A on page 9

TDM Access

Standard Premium

T1-OC3

Real Time

Interactive

Priority Data Data

Priority Data

(9)

TABLE 2A: COX IP-VPN SERVICE

FEATURES

CoS

Real Time CoS Interactive CoS Priority Data CoS

Best Effort CoS Real Time CoS Interactive CoS Priority Data CoS

Best Effort CoS

Latency 10 ms. 12 ms. 16 ms. 20 ms. 20 ms. 22 ms. 26 ms. 30 ms. 30 ms. 32 ms. 36 ms. 40 ms. 50 ms. 52 ms. 56 ms. 60 ms. 100 ms. 102 ms. 106 ms. 110 ms. Jitter 1 ms. 2 ms. 3 ms. N/A 1 ms. 2 ms. 3 ms. N/A 1 ms. 2 ms. 3 ms. N/A 1 ms. 2 ms. 3 ms. N/A 1 ms. 2 ms. 3 ms. N/A Service Availability 99.995% 99.995% 99.995% 99.995% 99.990% Data Delivery Ratio 99.99% 99.99% 99.99% 99.99% 99.985% IP-VPN Core Network SLAs Cox Metro: Up to 150 Fiber Route Miles Cox Regional: 151-400 Fiber Route Miles Cox Super - Regional: 401-750 Fiber Route Miles Cox Subnational: 751-1,500 Fiber Route Miles Cox National: 1,501-5,000 Fiber Route Miles

(10)

COX MPLS IP-VPN SERVICE

Another difference between the MPLS IP-VPN service and the already established Metro Ethernet Services is the ability to distinguish between Standard and Premium Port Types. Standard Ports are geared towards customers/sites that value simplicity and cost efﬁ ciency while maintaining performance. Premium Ports are intended for customers with more

complex deployments and/or applications that require differentiated trafﬁ c handling.

Cox’s MPLS IP-VPN Service also provides a Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) access option, which guarantees dedicated amounts of bandwidth with the associated business grade performance. TDM access supports both Point-to-Point Protocol and Multi-Link Point-to-Point data link protocols. The TDM Access option provides a viable alternative at locations where ﬁ ber/HFC connectivity is not available or where the customer wants to preserve existing equipment investment, such as situations where the embedded customer equipment only possesses TDM interfaces.

With an MPLS IP-VPN service, there is interaction at the IP layer between the customer [Customer Edge (CE)] and the provider network [Provider Edge (PE)]. The link between CE and PE supports both IPv4 and IPv6 addressing. IPv6 is the latest revision of the Internet Protocol (IP) and was developed by the IETF to deal with the problem of IPv4 address exhaustion — an ever-increasing number of new devices being

connected to the Internet resulting in a need for more IP addresses than IPv4 can support.

The CE-PE link supports the following routing protocols: • Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) — preferred choice. • Static — only for use with simple networks.

• Open Shor test Path First (OSPF) — available on request — only considered for customers with large, complex networks already using OSPF.

(11)

COX MPLS IP-VPN SERVICE

In terms of Quality of Service, Premium Ports on Cox’s IP-VPN Service supports four distinct Classes of Service (CoS). These are:

• Real Time — reserved for delay sensitive applications, having jitter, latency and packet loss requirements, e.g., VoIP, video conferencing. • Interactive Data — reserved for applications with latency and packet

loss sensitivities, e.g., video streaming, Citrix.

• Priority Data — reserved for applications with packet loss sensitivities, e.g., transactional applications, such as Point of Sale; remote device management, etc.

• Best Effort — reserved for applications with no latency, packet loss or other requirements, e.g., e-mail, web browsing.

Standard Ports support a single CoS type, Priority Data. This CoS is

better than Best Effort and so even trafﬁ c generated on Standard Ports is prioritized above Best Effort (regular Internet trafﬁ c) in Cox’s Metro and Backbone networks.

Cox MPLS IP-VPN Service supports the following network topologies: • Full Mesh — allows all sites to directly communicate with each other. • Hub and Spoke — all remote sites directly connected to a head ofﬁ ce

site. Remote sites cannot directly communicate with each other, only through the head ofﬁ ce site.

• Partial Mesh — variation of hub-and-spoke, in which some sites are not allowed to directly communicate with other sites.

(12)

WHICH SERVICE TO CHOOSE?

IP-VPN services in the form of IETF RFC 2547 have been in existence for about fifteen years. When they were first introduced Ethernet was not the dominant access technology that it is today and as such IP-VPN access was provided by various technologies, such as leased lines, Frame Relay etc. In 2004, the MEF introduced Carrier Ethernet 1.0, which provides similar functionality but only over Ethernet as the access technology. Given Cox Business’s fiber build out and extensive Ethernet service footprint, Metro Ethernet Services are available at most customer locations. Customers would therefore typically choose an IP-VPN service, in preference to a Metro Ethernet service, if:

• Certain locations are only serviced by legacy access technologies (i.e., not Ethernet).

• Customer applications require four Class of Service options provided by the IP-VPN service, rather than the two provided by the Metro Ethernet service.

• Customer has an existing IP-VPN service with another Service Provider and wants to migrate to Cox Business but not change the type of service they’re purchasing.

• Customer wants interaction with Cox at the IP layer Cox Business’s Metro Ethernet Services and MPLS IP-VPN Service are both excellent choices for accessing cloud-based services, as they both provide reliable, high-bandwidth connections to the Internet, with multiple

(13)

THE COX BUSINESS ADVANTAGE

• Extensive Availability — Cox has extensive ﬁ ber and HFC deployments in every market it serves and currently maintains over 20,000 ﬁ ber lit and over 1,000,000 HFC commercial serviceable locations across U.S. markets.

• Superior Reliability — All fi ber-based services are typically provided over Cox-owned and operated facilities. Whereas other providers will often provide linear unprotected last mile fi ber access for standard deployments, Cox metro networks are generally deployed with ringed last mile fi ber access that is dual-homed back to redundant MPLS platforms at the edge of the metro core network. This assures physical and logical path redundancy with rapid reconfi guration that provides very high service levels.

• Exceptional Customer Support — Cox metro networks are supported by a combination of Regional System Operations Centers and a nationwide Network Operations Center that operates on a 24/7 basis providing the best in customer service.

• Local Presence — Cox Business maintains local VP-GM level

leadership, product sales, marketing, engineering operations and technical support resources in the markets it serves. Maintaining this intense local focus is a key ingredient in successfully serving Cox’s predominantly metro and regionally oriented customers.

Reinforcing the last two points, Cox Business was a 2012 J.D. Power & Associates Business Telecom Data Ratings award recipient in the Small and Midsize Business category, earning top marks among others for Customer Service and Sales Reps and Account Executives.

When these facts are combined with Cox’s leadership position in the U.S. Business Ethernet Services market, it becomes obvious that:

(14)

ACRONYMS

ATM Asynchronous Transfer Mode BGP Border Gateway Protocol

CAGR Compound Annual Growth Rate

CE Customer Edge

CoS Class of Service

ELAN Ethernet LAN

EPL Ethernet Private Line

EVPL Ethernet Virtual Private Line

FR Frame Relay

GM General Manager

HFC Hybrid Fiber Coax

IETF Internet Engineering Task Force IP Internet Protocol

LAN Local Area Network MEF Metro Ethernet Forum

ML-PPP Multi-Link Point-to-Point Protocol MPLS Multi-Protocol Label Switching MSO Multiple System Operator NOC Network Operations Center OSPF Open Shortest Path First

PE Provider Edge

PPP Point-to-Point Protocol QoS Quality of Service RFC Request for Comments RT Round Trip

SMB Small and Midsize Business SOC System Operations Center TDM Time Division Multiplexing VP Vice President

VPN Virtual Private Network