Metro-Express

Business critical applications transported seamlessly over private fibre

AboveNet’s Metro-Express Solution

Interconnection of office LANs is becoming increasingly important in today’s working environment. Previous installations of MAN/WAN technologies have often been difficult with the need for costly interface cards, which are usually unique to this environment and have often resulted in bandwidth bottlenecks.

Metro-Express provides a fully managed solution for customers who do not have the in-house skills, equipment or desire to light and manage a metropolitan network themselves.

Metro-Express is provisioned as a point-to-point, single wavelength service, delivered across AboveNet’s own fibre network.  The Metro-Express modules used to light the service are located at each of the customer premises; both are managed remotely by AboveNet’s Network Management Centre.

In today’s corporate environment where mixtures of protocols have been adopted for many different applications, Metro-Express enables a one stop solution. As well as the ability to support a wide variety of the most commonly used protocols at ever increasing capacities, Metro-Express is also able to tailor redundancy and resilience levels to satisfy each customer’s individual business requirements.

Features and Benefits

Turnkey & Fully Managed
A total solution including fibre, equipment, engineering, installation and ongoing network operations. Managed via an ISDN/ADSL line, the Metro-Express service enables peace of mind and leaves you safe in the knowledge that any faults will be dealt with quickly and efficiently by our network engineers. 

Completely Secure
Delivered in a point-to-point configuration, Metro-Express is provisioned entirely over AboveNet’s fibre network, providing a secure solution.

Fixed Cost
Metro-Express is invoiced on a fixed, monthly recurring basis.

Tailored Solution
Delivered with a choice of protocols including Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, and Fibre Channel, AboveNet can tailor a network service to match your business requirements.

Scalable Upgrade Path
Delivered as a single wavelength service, Metro-Express provides an upgrade path to AboveNet's Metro-WDM: enabling multiple wavelengths across one pair of fibres meeting all future business needs.

Technical Details

Product Design

The AboveNet fibre is delivered in a point-to-point configuration between your two nominated locations. At each location the fibre will terminate on an AboveNet ODF (Optical Distribution Frame) and a cross-connect will be provided to connect the Metro-Express module.

The Metro-Express module is used to light the wavelength service and each is configured to run the specified transport protocol.  A port is assigned on each of the Metro-Express modules for connection to your internal network. This port is the AboveNet demarcation point for the service.

A router and ISDN/ADSL circuit line enables a remote connection into the Metro-Express alarm management facility providing visibility for the AboveNet Network Management Centre (NMC).

Metro-Express Components

AboveNet Fibre
1RU ODF will be provisioned at both locations for fibre termination
2 x single-mode fibres in a point-to-point configuration

 The AboveNet network uses enhanced single-mode fibre, surpassing the ITU-T G.652 standard.

Metro-Express Module
1RU Metro-Express module with dual power supplies will be provisioned at both locations and a port allocated for connection to the customer's network.

Metro-Express Management
1RU Cisco Router and ISDN/ADSL line will be provisioned at one location. At the same location the Metro-Express module will be provisioned with a management interface card enabling out of band telemetry with the AboveNet NMC.  

All of the equipment will be solely owned and maintained by AboveNet.

Product Support

Each customer order is allocated to a named Project Manager who maintains the responsibility to deliver the service and liaise with the customer. Once installed the customer has access to the AboveNet Network Management Centre via phone or email with all calls being tracked by the central ticketing system.

Management connectivity allows AboveNet‘s engineers to proactively monitor the performance of the service and troubleshoot effectively. With AboveNet owning the fibre, all equipment, holding its own spares and AboveNet engineers performing all works, there is a single point of responsibility for the entire service. 

Customer Connectivity

As standard the Metro-Express product is able to connect customer locations up to around 50km apart with enhanced optics available to support even larger distances. The Fast Ethernet service provides the customer a standard RJ-45 interface with the Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel services offering a multi-mode fibre SX interface.