Net backbones get boosts

UUNET and Cable & Wireless are upgrading their respective national Internet backbone networks.

MCI WorldCom's UUNET announced here at Spring Internet World '99 that it is increasing network capacity from OC-12 to OC-48 -- an increase from 622Mbit/sec to 2.4Gbit/sec. The ISP says it's spending $US1 million a day on its network developments.

The company has already upgraded the East Coast portion of its backbone with new ATM switches that will support the higher speeds. It will upgrade the remaining backbone by July. While UUNET did not offer more details about its European network, the ISP says it plans comparable upgrades overseas.

Cable & Wireless USA announced that it is beefing up its network with 15,000 route fibre miles of fibre optics from Level 3 Communications. Cable & Wireless is investing $US670 million in its new capacity that will connect its recently acquired Fore Systems ASX 400 ATM switches and Juniper Networks M40 routers.

Cable & Wireless expects to have all of the route fibre miles in place by 2001 to beef up its network to support OC-192.