SEPTEMBER 8, 2010 -- Calix Inc. has announced three expansions to its fiber access products, designed to bring port density, increased flexibility, and new residential and business systems to the Calix Unified Access portfolio.
The new GE-24 line card for the E7 Ethernet Service Access Platform (ESAP) brings 24-port gigabit Ethernet (GE) port density and increased deployment flexibility to the widely adopted, modular platform.
The expansion of residential Active Ethernet (AE) and business point-to-point gigabit Ethernet support across all 700GE and 760GX optical network terminals (ONTs) augments existing gigabit passive optical network (GPON) support on all ONTs and adds pseudowire emulation edge-to-edge 3 (PWE3) T1/E1 circuit emulation.
The 716GE-I ONT, the first indoor ONT designed by Calix, supports all our valued features, including the ability to auto-detect GPON and Active Ethernet, full line rate GE support, voice-activated remote ONT activation (RONTA), and a wide temperature range for enhanced deployment flexibility.
“We chose to deploy dedicated gigabit Ethernet over fiber to residences and businesses in the communities we serve because we wanted the maximal flexibility in providing services to customers both now and in the future, and with Calix’s new enhancements to its Active Ethernet portfolio we believe that we now have the tools to make this vision a reality,” says Dennis Hansel, assistant general manager of United Communications in Langdon, N.D. “Our serving areas are extremely varied in terms of subscriber density, and the combination of the modularity of the E7, with its ability to efficiently address low line counts in rural parts of our network, and now, with the GE-24 line cards, to scale up to extremely high densities in town, really provides us with a portfolio of flexible options. In addition, new ONT options like the indoor ONT and advanced business Ethernet support allow us tremendous flexibility in optimizing our operations and revenue opportunities--putting us in a position to make our ‘Fiber Forward’ business model a success.”
With between 8 and 24 GE ports present on each of the four line cards available, and more than 100 customers already deploying the platform after two quarters of availability, the E7 ESAP is deployed by more North American service provides than any other, according to the company.
The new GE-24 line card doubles the AE deployment density available in each two-slot E7 chassis to 48 ports per rack unit (RU) through the use of the latest, standards-based, dual-port compact small form factor pluggable (CSFP) ports. The new GE-24 also adopts the most recent revision of the CSFP Multi-Source Agreement (MSA) standard “Option 2,” which allows small-form-factor, pluggable (SFP) transceivers to be used in addition to CSFP transceivers.
Option 2 enables increased flexibility through simultaneous support for standard reach (CSFP transceivers can reach out to 20 kilometers) and long reach (SFP transceivers can reach out to 80 kilometers) applications on the same GE-24 line card. This capability extends to the chassis, as each E7 ESAP modular chassis can be deployed in 8, 12, and 24 port increments per slot, expanding to deliver up to 480 AE ports when deployed as a 10 RU modular chassis with a single IP address. It further enables a true “pay-as-you-grow” architecture, and is supported by a backplane that can deliver 100 gigabits per second (Gbps) of traffic to each slot, making the E7 ESAP well suited for residential AE and commercial point-to-point GE deployments.
Residential AE and point-to-point GE support on the 700GE and 760X ONT families brings new advanced Ethernet support to fiber-based Ethernet and GPON deployments. All 700GE ONTs and the 760GX family of ONTs are now supported by the E7 for both GPON and AE services. Additionally, the 766GX and 767GX business ONTs now support PWE3 T1/E1 services for pseudowire dedicated circuit emulation.
The new 716GE-I ONT brings a host of Calix differentiated ONT features inside the home. Its design has four GE ports and two telephone service (POTS) ports and can be easily deployed on a desk, wall, or in a structured wiring enclosure. The 716GE-I ONT also delivers full line rate GE support, RONTA, and support for a wide temperature range to enhance deployment flexibility. The new unit also features auto-detect technology, allowing it to automatically recognize and synchronize to both AE and GPON technologies.
“The combination of the high density GE-24 line card on the E7 with the rich AE feature set delivered with 700GE and 760GX ONT families creates a powerful portfolio of options for communications service providers to leverage,” says Kevin Pope, senior vice president of product development at Calix. “AE for residential applications and point-to-point GE for business applications continues to gain momentum across our customer base, both as a stand-alone architectural choice and as a complement to GPON deployments. Our goal has always been to allow our customers to seamlessly deploy the most appropriate fiber access technology for their specific deployment scenario, and we believe in the long run that this flexibility will play a key role in making their deployments successful.”
The E7 with GE-24 line cards and the 716GE-I indoor ONT--as well as the entire Calix Unified Access portfolio of fiber access tools--will be on display at the Fiber to the Home (FTTH) Conference and Expo from September 13 through 15 at Calix Booth 500 at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.