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GiantLoop Closes on $40 Million: Page 2 of 3

Often, devices and hosts throughout these big-company networks have unique interfaces: Mainframes, for instance, may use an ESCON interface, while SANs require Fibre Channel, and other data connections use Ethernet. Some complex hardware and software setups (involving CSU/DSUs, integrated access units, and other gear) must be made in order to get the network to run on the leased lines.

GiantLoop's opportunity, spokespeople say, is to eliminate the multiple leased lines and special interfaces and install instead a single optical link equipped with wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM). This link can offer bigger bandwidth faster and more efficiently and directly to a broader range of devices, reducing configuration and equipment costs.

To achieve all this, GiantLoop is acting as an equipment integrator as well as a greenfield service provider in its own right. It has a nonexclusive agreement to resell the Optera Metro platform from Nortel Networks Corp. (NYSE/Toronto: NT) to enterprise customers. GiantLoop will take charge of configuring this platform for customers, setting up all interfaces and testing them in its lab in Waltham, Mass.

The vendor also is working to lease dark fiber from several carriers in order to offer IP services in major cities, including Boston, Chicago, New York, and San Francisco. It will use these links along with the Optera Metro platform to create mini-MANs (metropolitan area networks) for large companies. They won't say which carriers they're working with, but rumor has it that one of them is Metromedia Fiber Network Inc. (Nasdaq: MFNX)

GiantLoop says it's already building out customer networks and has at least one paying customer, which it can't yet disclose.