RNP > RNP News > 2000 News

RNP and Embratel establish the third network traffic exchange

At the beginning of September the National Research Network and Embratel established a new network traffic exchange point in Brasília between its backbones. The link was deployed in ATM at a speed of 20 Mbps. The backbones with the greatest national scope that serve the academic and commercial public now count on three network traffic exchange points (PTT) amounting to 70 Mbps in total bandwidth. The Internet Steering Committee in Brazil has recommended that communications between major access networks and the Internet in Brazil should be done through a three PTT configuration to meet the demand on a national level.

The quality of communications between the RNP backbone and that of Embratel was a concern of the RNP -Points of Presence (PoP)- coordinators. At a recent interview given to RNP News, a few of them warned that peering service, as the network traffic exchange between backbones is called, could jeopardize the new RNP2 backbone performance. This, they said, was because the high speed of national connections would be disproportionately inferior to the network traffic exchange points. According to RNP operations coordinator Alexandre Grojsgold, though, the current configuration can easily handle the demand and will guarantee quality of service for a long time to come.

"Both in São Paulo and in Rio, average engagement of bandwidth has been inferior to network traffic capacity of PTT connections. Even at peak-hour usage of links the bandwidth limit has not been reached. The inauguration of the point in Brasília, therefore, will guarantee our users quality of communications with the Embratel backbone and vice versa, primarily in benefit to users in the nation's capital," he explained.

The communication of data between RNP and Embratel is done, in the case of São Paulo, through a dedicated-line circuitry running at speeds of 34 Mbps, set in place since August 1999. In the case of Rio de Janeiro, the same is accomplished with a link in ATM of 16 Mbps, activated at the beginning of August of this year. And of late, communications of this type is rendered possible in Brasília due to its newly inaugurated PTT, also in ATM, running at speeds of 20 Mbps.

The first PTT between RNP and Embratel was activated with a dedicated circuitry of 64 Kbps in Rio de Janeiro in 1995. The peering service was updated then to two 64 Kbps circuits. Later, it became one 2Mbps circuit and in the first half of 1997, was updated to two 2Mbps circuits, all these in Rio de Janeiro. In São Paulo, the first PTT was inaugurated in December 1998 using four 2Mbps circuits, updated in August 1999 to a total of 34 Mbps. The PTT in Rio de Janeiro was deactivated in June 2000 as a result of the last update in São Paulo. This is because the router protocols are not capable of compensating for the disproportionate difference in bandwidth at these points, causing an imbalance in routing and jeopardizing data exchange. The Rio point was reestablished in August of this year, at higher speeds and more compatible to the one in São Paulo.

Installation and maintenance costs of peering service communications channels between RNP and Embratel are totally covered by the operator. Aside from this channel, RNP exchanges network traffic with the Global One backbone in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, with the Impsat backbone in São Paulo and Paraná and with a number of other networks.

[RNP, 09.25.2000]