Occam Addresses Core Telco Challenges

Occam Networks Inc. said it will begin equipping service providers with optical core networks running at 80 percent capacity or higher with a new package that dramatically boosts bandwidth and in some cases reduces costs.

Continually pushed in aggregating traffic from a multitude of access networks carrying more video and latency sensitive services such as interactive gaming, Occam created a system to help telcos transitioning from SONET systems to bigger and faster core rings.

“We’re seeing greater aggregation as customer seek more than sub-10MB worth of services,” began Teresa Mastrangelo, principal analyst with BroadandTrends.com. “Occam has added more MAC address, QoS and service assurance to stay ahead of anticipated demand for IPTV and other high-bandwidth services.”

Occam’s Troy Glick, vice-president of product development admitted he “was very surprised” at how far away from each other telcos are now seeking to locate their core network nodes in optical networks.

The vendor’s gear is equipped to support lasers that work over 10- and 40-kilometer distances, possibly with plans to support pluggable lasers covering longer distances in the future. “We’ve seen a lot of requests for 80- and 120-kilometer distance coverage,” he admitted.

Covering greater distances with core network systems such as Occam’s is of growing importance for service providers, such as rural telcos and others hopping to provide advanced services to residential and business customers over a large geographic area.

The Occam products also are evidence of the evolution of optical networking, said Mastrangelo. “Three to four years ago, you saw SONET systems with OCx interfaces, but that changed when the RBOCs blessed Ethernet as an aggregation method,” recalls Glick.

Occam said service providers get four-times the bandwidth with 10gbps Ethernet links as they do with OC-48 and for 20 percent less cost. But when pitted against an OC-192 system, the Ethernet entry is three to four times less expensive per node.

Occam Networks Inc. www.occamnetworks.com

Share this article: Email, Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Yahoo!MyWeb, Windows Live Favorites, Furl
Add this article feed to: RSS, My Yahoo, Newsgator, Bloglines