Turin Enters Ethernet over Copper Arena

Moving it into the Ethernet over copper space, Turin Networks has unveiled the Traverse PacketEdge1200 service edge aggregation platform. The company would not comment on pricing.

The product is aimed at service providers that want to offer small and medium businesses the ability to leverage their T1s for both dedicated Internet access and Layer 2 VPNs – with dynamic bandwidth sharing between those connections.

This solution can be used for Ethernet, IP and/or frame relay service aggregation over one or more T1 circuits. It also does frame relay-to-Ethernet service internetworking, enabling service providers to cap investment in frame relay.

Turin’s new solution is a take off on the popular Ethernet over T1 technology that employs PPP or MLPPP, said Ralph Santitoro, director of carrier Ethernet solutions for the company. But Ethernet over T1 typically requires a customer premises device at the user location and an aggregation device in the service provider network, and the routers involved need expensive channelized DS3 and router cards for PPP processing, he said. However, the Turin solution takes the protocol processing out of the router and offers it in this specialized box, which does hardware-based processing. The Turin solution, which also does bonding (of up to eight T1s) and unbonding of T1 circuits, offers a more compact platform than can a router-based solution and fits within the standard operation procedures of service providers, Santitoro said.

Of course, in addition to these two Ethernet over T1 variations, companies like Actelis and Hatteras have been selling Ethernet over copper gear based on DSL. Santitoro said such solutions are attractive because they use copper bonding, which allows service providers to combine inexpensive copper pairs as needed. But these same products, because they are based on DSL, are distance sensitive, require prequalification of copper and offer limited CPE choices.

Responding to that comment, Christopher V. Cook, Hatteras’ senior vice president of worldwide sales and customer care, said: “Bandwidth needs and service needs for mid-band are exploding and continuing to throw T1s at the problem is not on anybody’s A list of things to do. However, T1s remain an option for carriers without access to copper loops, just not an optimum, one as it doesn’t enable them to deliver a differentiated service to market. As the old saying goes ‘bond loops whenever you can and bond T1s only when you have to.’”

Turin Networks Inc. www.turinnetworks.com

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