Expanding Access

Various Vendors Promote Products with Broader, Better Bandwidth

Allied Telesyn, which recently entered the U.S. market with an IP-based DSLAM targeting video applications, at the rural telco-focused show unveiled new FTTH and Ethernet in the First Milebased cards for its DSLAM, saying the product is the first IP-based platform to support DSL, Ethernet and FTTH.

“We’re targeting less than $700 per sub; that’s the loaded cost of a port and CPE,” says Bill Allen, vice president of network service provider operations at Allied Telesyn. “We’ve seen PON at $1,500; today it’s at $800 to $1,200 a sub.” Allen explains that EFM and PON are considered competing technologies, but that EFM is less expensive than PON, uses active components and offers higher bandwidth.

Also new from Allied Telesyn is a line of EFM-based residential gateways for FTTH applications, which SureWest is using with switches from Cisco Systems. The gateways offer FTTH termination, full layer 3 routing, connectors for set-tops, firewall functionality, multicast and two to three VoIP ports. In addition to telcos that want to use FTTH for new builds, Allen expects the public utility market to use the technology in a significant way. “The public utility market is just roaring to life,” he says, explaining that since January, Allied Telesyn has been targeting power utilities building FTTH networks. “They have money. And they think a five- to eight-year return is a great thing.”

In other NTCA news, Net to Net Technologies Inc. said it was set to begin shipping an ADSL2+ module for its IPbased DSLAMs. Matthew Byrd, vice president of marketing, says the new 48- port AIM24000-48 module doubles the bandwidth available through standard ADSL, and that ADSL2+ also has lower power consumption. ADSL2+ can deliver bandwidth of up to 24mbps downstream and up to 2mbps upstream.

“Premium services like IP video over DSL continue to gain momentum in the industry and are fueling the need for higher data rates to provide these services. ADSL2+ is the most promising technology to support these higher data rates,” says Ken Latimer, chairman and CEO of Net to Net. “Our new ADSL2+ module allows carriers to more effectively compete in today’s competitive broadband market.”

The vendor would not provide pricing, but Byrd says it’s half as much per port as traditional ADSL because chipsets have come down in price.

The module is full-density and non-blocking. It allows for all 48 ports to run the entire ADSL2+ feature set on every port simultaneously.

Dan Byron, vice president of business development at Critical Telecom, says his company plans to deliver ADSL2+ capability in its FRED DSL extender product next year.

Actelis Networks also has added to its portfolio new Ethernet-based products aimed at helping service providers maximize the bandwidth available over copper links. At NTCA the company took the wraps off three new products in its MetaLIGHT line. The products are based on the company’s previously announced MetaLOOP technology, which performs spatial division multiplexing over multiple copper pairs to deliver what looks like a single connection to customers. This technology breaks apart packets and distributes those piece parts on all available copper connections.

“Only 11 percent of businesses are served by fiber,” says Thomas Reynolds, senior vice president of worldwide sales, marketing and customer support. “A lot of smaller businesses, industrial parks don’t have access to fiber.”

But new applications like IP-based video surveillance require more bandwidth, he says, adding that most service providers are trying to reach small and mediumsized businesses with services in the 3- to 30mbps range.

The initial Actelis products, MetaLIGHT 100E and MetaLIGHT 100E, are point-to-point solutions that deliver DS3 and four T1s on 12 pairs and 16 pairs, respectively. The new CO-based MetaLIGHT 130 and MetaLIGHT 1300 products are point-tomultipoint platforms that enable deployment of high-bandwidth Ethernet services over copper to multiple locations from one centralized platform. The MetaLIGHT 130 supports up to 16 copper pairs, while the MetaLIGHT 1300 can support up to 64 copper pairs. Both systems can deliver from 1 to 40mbps of Ethernet services to a customer site. The Ethernet services from each platform are groomed and handed off to the network through 100mbps or optical GigE interfaces. The MetaLIGHT 50 sits at the customer premises to tie in with the 130 or 1300.

Unlike IMA solutions on the market, Reynolds says the Actelis solution does forward error correction to deliver lower bit error rates and thus higher throughput. “If we provision at 10 meg we will run at 10 meg,” says Reynolds.

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