{"id":39574,"date":"2025-09-23T21:56:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T21:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/39574\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T21:56:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T21:56:08","slug":"lumen-says-its-taking-its-naas-to-a-new-level","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/39574\/","title":{"rendered":"Lumen says it\u2019s taking its NaaS to a new level"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lumen revealed its new \u201cProject Berkeley\u201d interface device to expand NaaS accessEnterprises will be able to use the device from off-net sites \u2013 no matter what kind of internet connection they haveThe idea is to prep enterprises for the \u201cCloud 2.0 AI economy,\u201d said Lumen CTO Dave Ward<\/p>\n

Lumen has a plan to serve up its network-as-a-service (NaaS) platform to more customers, regardless of their existing internet connection.<\/p>\n

At the company\u2019s Analyst Forum, Lumen CTO Dave Ward unveiled \u201cProject Berkeley,\u201d a network interface device that essentially expands the company\u2019s NaaS services, like on-demand internet, Ethernet and IP VPN, to off-net sites using any access type. Those access types can be 5G, fiber, copper, fixed wireless access, satellite and more.<\/p>\n

The device, which looks like a typical internet router, has a \u201cSwiss Army knife as a front panel,\u201d Ward said. \u201c[For] all of my other service provider partners in the industry, I now run the services on their network and we connect this back to Lumen\u2019s backbone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Lumen<\/p>\n

A screenshot from Lumen’s virtual NaaS announcement.
\n (Screenshot)<\/p>\n

Lumen, in addition to supplying private fiber connectivity for hyperscalers<\/a>, has been growing its NaaS platform for some time. It launched its first offering in 2023<\/a> and now counts over 1,000<\/a> enterprise NaaS customers. Now, the company aims to bring its connectivity products to over 10 million off-net buildings, said Ward. The device will also allow hyperscalers to integrate and sell these products in their respective marketplaces.<\/p>\n

Digital twinning<\/p>\n

He added Project Berkeley leverages digital twin technology, which lets Lumen have \u201ca full replicate understanding of exactly what\u2019s going on in this device running out of our cloud.\u201d<\/p>\n

News of this device isn\u2019t too surprising given how Lumen is trying to make its network services more accessible and cloud compatible. For instance, Lumen in May introduced its Lumen Connectivity Fabric<\/a>, a suite of services that can all be remotely managed via the cloud and the company\u2019s so-called \u201cfabric port,\u201d a physical device that Lumen said can support \u201cthousands of services.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Ward, Project Berkeley \u201cbecomes our fabric port on-prem,\u201d meaning Lumen can provide \u201cfull bandwidth, latency [and] redundancy control\u201d not only between data centers and cloud providers but also from one premises to another, or from the prem to data center and cloud.<\/p>\n

The goal of the product, which Lumen expects to roll out in the first half of 2026, is to ensure enterprises are prepared for what Ward called the \u201cCloud 2.0 AI economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s an absolutely, completely different way to build enterprise WAN networks,\u201d he explained. \u201cWe really have to get beyond the notion of a flat internet and flat technology to get the cloud, waves and fiber\u2026we\u2019re going to have layers of services and control of these different layers and that has not been seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lumen\u2019s network expansion<\/p>\n

As Lumen cultivates its NaaS arsenal, it continues to build out its physical fiber network to support over $9 billion in Private Connectivity Fabric (PCF) deals.<\/p>\n

The company to-date has deployed roughly 2,600 miles of fiber across 26 routes, said EVP of Enterprise Operations Kye Prigg, and expects to reach 16.6 million total intercity fiber miles by end of 2025.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not just the number of fiber miles that matter. Prigg also noted Lumen has finished construction of 144 In-Line Amplifier (ILA) shelters, which essentially serve as signal boosters for the fiber backbone.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout these shelters, you can\u2019t light the fiber in the ground,\u201d he said, and Lumen eventually hopes to have over 500 shelters in operation to accommodate the enterprise\u2019s increasing appetite for fiber.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur consumers are also lighting up and consuming the fiber in the ground I would say at a record pace,\u201d Prigg added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lumen revealed its new \u201cProject Berkeley\u201d interface device to expand NaaS accessEnterprises will be able to use the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[6160,3896,6162,36041,36038,36039,3495,359,36040,36036,3496,36037,111,139,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-39574","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-artificial-intelligence-ai","9":"tag-broadband","10":"tag-cloud","11":"tag-digital-twin","12":"tag-enterprise-customer","13":"tag-fiber-backbone","14":"tag-fierce-network-homepage","15":"tag-internet","16":"tag-long-haul-network","17":"tag-lumen-technologies","18":"tag-modernization","19":"tag-naas","20":"tag-new-zealand","21":"tag-newzealand","22":"tag-nz","23":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}