AFC Provides Details on its FTTP Solution

AFC this week officially launched its FiberDirect fiber-to-the-premises solution, which is a “simple” enhancement to its popular AccessMAX product line. The company, which first mentioned plans for FiberDirect at SUPERCOMM in June shortly after the RBOC RFP for FTTP was issued, is now providing details about the product and says an independent operating company, which it declined to name, is in trials with the product.

Ryan Koontz, director of marketing at AFC, says its FTTP solution, which is expected to be generally available in the next 30 to 60 days, is unique in the marketplace for several reasons.

It enables service providers to leverage their existing investments in the AccessMAX, which he says has more than 100,000 shelves and more than 8 million lines deployed with carriers industrywide. Every AccessMAX AFC has shipped since 1996 can be upgraded to FiberDirect, says Koontz. That means service providers with existing AccessMAX products not only maximize use of their existing boxes, but they also can easily convert customers from copper to fiber and can leverage the time they’ve put into tech training, processes and support systems already in place to support AccessMAX, he explains.

According to Koontz, FiberDirect is also unique because it supports PON, IP voice or TDM voice in a single shelf. Some other solutions require a new GR303 upgrade to Class 5 switches to support voice, he says. He adds that AFC has been aggressive in the development of H.248/Megaco, which the company believes will help simplify the transition from Class 5 to IP voice switching. “We think FTTP will be catalyst for IP voice because it’s packetized at the customer premises, so why” convert it on the network edge, he says.

The FiberDirect card is based on the FSAN version of PON. With a 32-to-1 split, the system reaches up to 20km and delivers 622mbps downstream and 155mbps upstream. It can be deployed in central office of remote terminal scenarios.

In other AFC news, the company has come out with a new release of its TransMAX 1500 optical access solution, which offers new performance monitoring and optical layer monitoring functionality.

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