February 17, 2004 Merrimack, NH -- Metrobility Optical Systems today introduced a new model for its Radiance Optical Ethernet System family. The E-Services Network Interface Device (NID) gives service providers important operations, administration, and management capabilities, including remote management and troubleshooting features that are critical to the delivery of secure, private, and managed Metro Ethernet services.
The E-Services NID conforms to the IEEE 802.3ah draft standard for Ethernet in the first mile and the Metro Ethernet Forum's Services Model for E-Line or point-to-point services. Using Metrobility's E-Services NID, service providers can now manage Metro Ethernet service level agreements and performance guarantees.
Metrobility's E-Services NID enables service providers to utilize existing Ethernet switches and routers at the customer site to offer new, revenue-generating Metro Ethernet services without significant capital and operational expenditures, claim company representatives. Providing a secure, managed demarcation point between the service provider and business customer network, the E-Services NID minimizes the need for expensive truck rolls or loss of revenue due to service disruptions. As a result, carriers can see reductions in the cost of provisioning and higher revenue streams from bandwidth-intensive applications.
In addition, Metrobility's E-Services NID offers flexible management and optical interface options to accommodate future requirements as the network evolves and industry standards are ratified. Embedded software in the E-Services NID is field-upgradable to ensure service providers a migration from SNMP-based management to Ethernet standards-based OAM.Industry research firm Infonetics Research predicts annual worldwide metro Ethernet equipment revenue to grow by 150% to $7.5 billion by 2007, due to growing corporate demand and service provider plans to simplify their metro networks over time to a model of Ethernet/IP over optical. "Although Ethernet is emerging as a strategic metro access technology, there are still non-trivial technical challenges in providing carrier-class operations, administration, and management capabilities for Ethernet services," reports Michael Howard, principal analyst and co-founder of Infonetics. "Metrobility's E-Services NID provides a useful demarcation point between carrier and customer networks, allowing for flexibility in service offerings, including quality of service. The NID can be a key network building block as carriers look to increase their revenues with Metro Ethernet." The Gigabit E-Services NID represents an innovation in optical access and connectivity by addressing the need for comprehensive OAM features in the first mile, say Metrobility representatives, who claim to be the first to deliver a set of advanced remote management and troubleshooting features for 100-Mbit/sec Ethernet services. "Our new E-Services NID is designed for maximum isolation between the private and the public network," asserts Alex Saunders, president and CEO of Metrobility. "Service providers can now manage Ethernet services in the first mile from a central office without any disruptions in their customers' service. This is critical as business users demand Metro Ethernet services with a high quality of service measured through carrier-class service level agreements." As the CPE demarcation point, the E-Services NID monitors the health and status of devices and network connections to enable a high level of manageability, including remote optical link loopback testing; integral optical power monitoring; CMIP and RMON Group 1 statistics to determine quality of line, errored symbol, and frame events; and real-time analog information for equipment power and temperature that provide "dying gasp" capabilities. Utilizing 802.3ah management features, the solution scales for a large metro access service deployment by eliminating the need for an IP address at the customer site. Intelligent management access controls make the device impervious to denial of service, all traffic conditions, and traffic patterns. The card also supports VLAN-aware advanced bridging. The E-Services NID is comprised of an R851-1S or R851-SS Gigabit Ethernet Services Line Card mounted in a Radiance R5000, R1000, R400, or R200 chassis. The Services Line Card supports copper-to-fiber (R851-1S) or fiber-to-fiber (R851-SS) connectivity with 10/100/1000-Mbits/sec auto-negotiation on the copper port. Fiber-optic connectivity flexibility is provided through the use of small form-factor pluggable (SFP) optics. Singlemode fiber connectivity can extend network distances up to 100 km.In addition, the small form-factor pluggable optics enable service providers to utilize ITU Grid CWDM wavelengths to increase fiber capacity up to 16 Gbits/sec on a single fiber pair. SFP optics enable service providers to change optics on-the-fly for time saving with no effect on existing services. The R851-1S list price is $1399, and R851-SS list price is $1499. SFP optics range in price from $229 to $2299, dependent on fiber types, power, and distance required. The E-Service NID is available 90 days after receipt of order. Standalone chassis with power range in price from $229-$249.
