Juniper showcases assured QoS

24.11.2004
Von Geoffrey P.

Network equipment manufacturer Juniper Networks Inc. staged the first working demonstration of a real-time video conferencing between Hong Kong and Seoul, South Korea that provided an assured quality of service (QoS) on demand.

The video conferencing service, which rode on the infrastructure of Korea Telecom, Hutchison Global Communications of Hong Kong and equipment maker Polycom, was the first demo of an assured QoS, one of the key services that are expected to be offered by a global service interconnection alliance among carriers, software and equipment vendors.

During the demo, Juniper officials showed how improvements in video and audio quality between two cities can be controlled in real-time over the public Internet infrastructure. Previously, QoS was a big headache for users of network bandwidth-dependent applications such as video conferencing, Voice over IP and content streaming, among others.

Using an emerging interface standard between networks and customer applications, Juniper demonstrated how QoS and other policy-based controls can be set up and maintained in real-time. The demo used Juniper?s SDX-300 Service Deployment System and Polycom?s video conferencing system to automatically upgrade session bandwidth and QoS based on appropriate video service requirements, network resources and subscriber service options.

Metro Ethernet

A key part of the service was the Metro Ethernet interconnection between Korea Telecom and Hutchison. This service is the world?s first multipoint-to-multipoint international Ethernet service and it allows customers to get a ?plug-and-play? access anywhere in Hong Kong or Korea, said Andrew Kwok, head of Hutchison?s international carrier business.

This service provides an interconnection service between the Metro Ethernet network of Korea Telecom and Hutchison, so a Hutchison customer in Hong Kong, for example, can go to Korea and get network access simply by plugging into an Ethernet port.

Kwok said the main advantage of the service is that customers no longer need to buy additional equipment to be able to connect to their corporate network. The Juniper technology also allows them to easily integrate future applications such as the assured quality of service for video conferencing and media streaming, among others.

Aside from the assured QoS for video conferencing, Juniper also demonstrated a working application for assured real-time bandwidth for media content streaming, particularly movie video streaming.

The company showed how online content providers can easily manage policies in real-time so that their subscribers will automatically get as much bandwidth as they require to play a video over the Internet.