Global Crossing has been named a Juniper Networks Elite J-Partner reseller, the companies announced today.

The partnership allows a single point of contact for dedicated Internet access or IP VPN transport and customer premises equipment (CPE) for Global Crossing's self-managed IP VPN customers.

Global Crossing's Elite Partner status means that the company offers Juniper's entire portfolio of network and security equipment, including routers, firewalls and intrusion detection and prevention and application acceleration solutions.

"Juniper's always been a good partner for us in enhancing our own network, they make up a considerable part of our infrastructure, which we use to create these IP convergence solutions," said Alan Rosenberg, Global Crossing’s vice president of partnership development. "Now we're able to extend the capabilities we've developed with them and the partnership for synergies to our customers and help enable our customers to get IP convergence solutions easier, quicker and more holistically."

Global Crossing's fiber-optic MPLS-based network services serve fully managed, converged IP services including voice over IP, IP VPN and IP video.

"With our combined synergies and IP-market focus [Global Crossing and Juniper] can serve the rapidly expanding demand for converged IP services from both enterprise and carrier customers," said Robert Bruce, vice president, Americas Channel, Juniper Networks, in a statement.