Japan's NTT Chooses Cisco For IP VPN Service

Japan's NTT Communications Corporation announced yesterday that it has selected Cisco Systems' multicast virtual private network (VPN) technology for its Arcstar IP-VPN service.

NTT Communications will use the technology to deliver video services to subscribers with greater simplicity and at reduced operational costs. Cisco's multicast VPN services will allow NTT Communications to easily set content access restrictions regardless of the hardware involved. It will be able to deliver secure content to multiple users from a central location, while being able to easily customize the content for each user.

Cisco has long included IP multicast support in its IOS software, allowing for the implementation of IP multicast without requiring changes or upgrades to the core router. Cisco's multicast technology does not require user side tunneling technologies like generic routing encapsulation, and because of its use of standards like Protocol Independent Multicast and Internet Group Management Protocol, it can be implemented without changes to the user's existing multicast environment.

According to Cisco, all IOS-supported multicast technologies can be applied at the VPN connection level.