November 8, 2004 Spartanburg, SC -- AFL Telecommunications is introducing an active Ethernet FTTx product set in the North American market. Consisting of an Ethernet concentrator and an access node, AFL believes its product family offers a point-to-point attractive "last-mile" strategy. Primary benefits include rapid cost recovery and flexibility for service providers providing Ethernet-based fiber-to-the-subscriber offerings.
The product family includes the FNT 3824 Concentrator, a 1-RU form factor unit that supports 24 subscriber ports. Each port can support 100 Mbits/sec of symmetric bandwidth. System dynamic range is 16 dB. The system includes two modular uplink ports, configured as 100/1000Base-TX, 1000Base-SX, or 1000Base-LX ports.
The FNT 3824 features IGMP multicast control, spanning tree protocol, multiple levels of quality f service (QoS), port trunking and mirroring, and bandwidth control.
The next device, the FNT 3011 Access Node, comes in either desktop or wall-mounted designs. The FNT 3011 features a compact design that includes integrated fiber management, SC optical interconnect, and a 10/100 Ethernet port for end-user connectivity.
The active Ethernet offerings complement AFL Telecommunications' existing portfolio of Ethernet passive optical network (EPON) and passive infrastructure. Originally developed by Fujikura, the new product family has been deployed extensively within Japan's FTTx networks.