DQE expands regional network to meet needs ranging from 5G to differentiated services delivery

Regional service providers like DQE Communications have a home-team advantage, with a nuanced understanding of local needs plus the agility to react quickly. DQE, which serves Western Pennsylvania, moved swiftly to expand its metro network services to meet the digital needs of its customers and its growing metro edge and mobile backhaul requirements.

Overview


Company DQE Communications LLC
Industry Service Provider
Products used ACX7100ACX710Juniper Paragon PathfinderMX Series
Region Americas
Night view of modern high rise building with an overlay of illuminated interconnected lines
Customer Success At-a-glance

4,097

Mile fiber network serving Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio

2,490

Buildings, 118 business parks, and 17 data centers connected by fiber

76

Libraries in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County were provided with high-speed Internet 

Challenge

Meet rapidly growing demand for secure connectivity

DQE, a sister company of Duquesne Light Co., provides Internet, metro Ethernet, wavelength, dark fiber, SD-WAN, and colocation services to enterprises, carriers, and commercial real estate properties.

“We are seeing increased demand for bandwidth from every corner of our market,” says Paul McGinn, manager of IP services and network engineering at DQE Communications. “The introduction of 5G is driving the growth of our mobile backhaul business.”

5G allows businesses and consumers to download content twice as fast as 4G and opens up a host of new applications. Beyond mobile, DQE is seeing increased bandwidth consumption across all segments, especially in manufacturing, healthcare, education, media, and government. 

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Solution

Create a blueprint for efficient metro expansion in a bandwidth-hungry world

DQE’s fiber network provides a flexible foundation to serve customers’ digital transformation needs and for expansion into new geographic regions, such as Central Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

Juniper MX Series 5G Universal Routing Platforms provide core network routing and Juniper ACX Series Universal Metro Routers are used for the metro edge and mobile backhaul. With ACX Series routers, DQE can extend MPLS services to the edge, enhancing the customer experience and reducing cost. 

DQE expanded its metro service with the Juniper ACX7100-32C Universal Metro Router, which sets new benchmarks for capacity, density, and low latency in the ACX family of access and aggregation routers. 

The ACX7100 enables cloud-scale reliability, agility, and open programmability to accelerate service deployment. The hardened Juniper ACX710 Universal Metro Routers will provide flexible access and aggregation at 200 other locations on the DQE network.

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Outcome

Expand digital access in Western Pennsylvania and beyond

Fast, reliable, and secure connectivity is more important than ever to DQE customers, whether it’s a public library system, a manufacturer embracing 3D printing, or a university inventing the future of autonomous vehicles. 

“With the ACX router, we can support differentiated quality per service type, including broadband Internet and mobile, to support our diverse customer needs,” says McGinn.

DQE also uses Juniper Paragon Pathfinder, a cloud-native controller, to simplify traffic engineering and efficiently manage strict transport service-level agreements through automated planning, provisioning, and proactive monitoring of large traffic loads. 

With Juniper’s cloud metro solution, DQE has a cost-effective way to aggregate metro traffic to its core network, with the precise feature set needed to efficiently deliver Ethernet, mobile backhaul, and other services to customers across education, financial services, healthcare, and carriers. 

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“As our network continues to grow, Paragon Pathfinder will help us maintain resiliency. The ability to automatically heal network outages is key to the business moving forward.”
Paul McGinn Manager of IP Services and Network Engineering, DQE Communications
“With the ACX7100 router, we can aggregate 32 100Gbps ports on a single pizza-box chassis, which gives us a very efficient way to grow our network.”
Paul McGinn Manager of IP Services and Network Engineering, DQE Communications

Published October 2021