Juniper’s E320 Offers Big Bandwidth for Bevy of Services

Juniper Networks Inc. says its new E320 broadband services router eclipses similar products in the marketplace in terms of capacity and quality of service to address service provider triple play requirements – including video streaming and high-definition TV.

A "big brother" to Juniper's existing line of E-series routers, the E320 scales from 100 to 320gbps and can serve up to 128,000 subscribers with a single chassis. David Boland, Juniper's senior manager of next-generation solutions, says that's a sizable improvement over Juniper's ERX-1440 box, which offers 40gpbs of capacity; Cisco Systems Inc.'s 10000 Series Routers, which packs 50gbps; and Redback Network Inc.'s gigabit product. However, Redback last month unveiled new modules for its SmartEdge 400 Service Gateway that allow it scale up to 80gbps; and for its SmartEdge 800 Service Gateway that allow it to scale up to 240gpbs or higher.

Because the E320 employs the same JUNOSe operating system as the other products in the E-series line, customers with existing ERXs will have a built-in comfort level with the new box, Boland adds.

The E320, which can accept traffic from any brand or type of broadband access infrastructure, offers advanced quality of service based on TR-59, a DSL Forum technical requirement written primarily by BellSouth, SBC Communications Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc., says Boland. He adds that the hierarchical shaping and queuing of the E320 goes beyond what’s available in competing products. That ability to manage multiple sessions per home is important to service providers given that many are now delivering the triple play, Boland adds.

The box also includes multicast features to support multicast video and channel changing. Boland says the E320 can be used in IPTV multicast or TV optical overlay applications, as two examples. In the TV overlay scenario, the E320 can control the video stream, keeping track of such parameters as the duration of the video session so the service provider can bill appropriately.

Boland adds that some companies have suggested that the intelligent BRAS capability such as that found in the E320 should be integrated into DSLAMs. But that doesn’t make sense, he says, given that there are typically 20,000 to 30,000 DSLAMs in large-scale networks, so service providers want these devices to become commodity items. Instead, Boland says, service providers can and should do centralized subscriber management of the network, including DSLAMs or whatever access infrastructure is in place, using the E320.

Other E320 features include full IP routing, so the box can support VPNs; ATM-to-Ethernet migration features, including the ability to mix and match ATM, Ethernet and SONET on the same slot; and two 40gbps “turbo slots,” which have extra switch fabric interconnections to handle future gigE or 10gigE cards.

Given the large amount of traffic this box can handle, availability is key, so Juniper built into the E320 hitless SRP switchover; 1:4 switch fabric redundancy; 1:4 line card redundancy; APS port to port or IOA to IOA; and in-service software upgrades.

Pricing for the E320 starts at $110,000.

In other news this week from Juniper, the company is introducing two new cards for its line of ERXs. The new High Density Ethernet (HDE) card has eight gigabit Ethernet ports, 96 ports per ERX-1440 and small form factor optics. The new ATM + Ethernet Combination Card has two ports of ATM OC3/STM1 and one gigabit Ethernet port; this product allows for ATM to Ethernet migration.

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