Verizon next year plans to integrate the five IP networks it operates today onto a single IP network, utilizing new IP routers that are not yet commercially available.

At a press briefing today, Fred Briggs, executive vice president of network operations and technology, said the company is working with multiple equipment vendors and not necessarily looking to its existing router vendors,  Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks.

“We plan to move to VoIP within two to three years and have all our circuit switches converted,” he said. “The goal is to operate a single converged IP core.  We don’t quite have the router we need today in terms of scale, hitless switching and routing. It will be available the end of this year, and deployed next year.”

The converged network will enable Verizon to function with half the equipment used today, for significant efficiencies, Briggs said. The company needs higher capacity routers, which enable software upgrades without being taken out of service, or impacting customers, he added.

Today Verizon operates five IP networks, Briggs said, including a private IP network for its multi-protocol label switching service, the IP backbone originally built by Uunet, the vBNS Internet 2 network built for the government and now commercialized, the Verizon Internet network and Vbone, which connects Verizon’s softswitches.

“Don’t assume we are just working with Cisco and Juniper,” Briggs said, in response to a reporter’s question. “Clearly they are players in the game, but there are other players in the game.”

Verizon is already working with vendors on another key piece of convergence equipment--an edge box that features both Ethernet and TDM switch matrixes. The company is in lab trials for this new box and will do a field trial next fall, Briggs said. As for vendors in that area, he said Verizon will work with “several entrants--we will work with the big players and a lot of the small players” on both new equipment pieces, he said.