Alcatel today unveiled new software-based enhancements to and customers for its 7750 Service Router and 5620 Service Aware Manager.
Lindsay Newell, Alcatel’s vice president of marketing, says the product upgrades are in response to service providers’ need to support frame relay services while adding new IP/Ethernet services and moving to IP/MPLS-based networks. While IP VPN revenue continues to show the greatest growth, frame relay and TDM revenue still accounts for two-thirds of the $90 billion market – and are projected to still do so by 2010, according to Alcatel, referencing a Pyramid Research report.
So, in addition to supporting point- to-point pseudowire and multiservice access to IP services, the Alcatel products now also enable multiservice access to VPLS services. VPLS is a multipoint, Layer 2 service that’s still in its early adopter phase, says Newell. Most of those offering the service are Tier 2, competitive carriers, he adds, but now Tier 1 service providers are looking to offer multiservice access to VPLS, probably starting later this year.
This type of service is important, he says, because service providers don’t always have fiber access to all customers to deliver Ethernet services. For example, an insurance company with 100 locations may be accessible via fiber to only 50 of those sites, so the service provider in this instance would want to use a combination of ATM and frame relay services and Ethernet services. VPLS can carry both legacy services like ATM and frame and newer Ethernet services, and allow customers on all those connection types to communicate with one another. The following interfaces are available on the Alcatel equipment: OC12, OC3, DS3, DS1 and DS0; ATM OC3 and OC12; POS OC3 and OC12; and fast Ethernet/gigabit Ethernet.
Also new with the software upgrade announced today is a non-stop service capability, meaning all services – and the customer information, mappings from access networks to the core, and the like – are statefully maintained. “If we have a control plane problem, the customer never knows there’s a problem,” says Newell. “We think that’s unique in the industry.”
Alcatel with this release has extended its existing IAM tools to include ATM and frame relay services, as well as pseudowire.
Finally, the new software allows service providers to use their 7750 and 5620 SAM solutions to test SLAs and service metrics including latency, jitter, packet loss and delay for end user customers. For example, if a service provider is selling point-to-point circuits that service provider knows voice is running over and latency goes over a certain threshold, the service provider gets an alarm. And the service provider can test service performance through scheduled testing or on-demand testings. “This applies to any of the services,” says Newell. “These tools are embedded in the 7750 or run from the 5620 SAM.”
Alcatel today also revealed two new customers that have signed on to use the 7750 and 5620 SAM. Elisa Corp. is using the equipment in its new nationwide network, which became operational in July and comprises several hundred network nodes based on the Alcatel 7750 and 5620. The network is being used to aggregate broadband and 2.5 and 3G mobile traffic as well as to deliver IP VPN and VPLS services. Meanwhile, Türk Telekom has committed to a $28 million contract to use the equipment to integrate such services as high-speed Internet, IP telephony, video-on-demand, and secure enterprise and data warehousing applications onto a single platform. Deployment of new services will begin as early as 2006, with completion of the multiphased contract expected by 2007.
