Agilent Technologies Inc. has introduced new and enhanced optical test products for metro networks that will help network equipment manufacturers (NEMs) reduce costs while meeting the complex test challenges involved in designing and manufacturing the latest generation of metro devices. The products will also help service providers evaluate and select metro devices, reduce test time, and quickly deploy metro services, contends the company.
Despite an overall reduction in service providers' capital expenditures during the past 18 months, investment in the metro network market continues to grow. While excess capacity exists in the long-haul core network, metro bandwidth is still limited and relatively expensive compared to the core network. NEMs and service providers are working to change the overall architecture and technology of the metro network and to reduce bandwidth costs.
"Our customers need to reduce the cost per bit of transmitted data by about 25 percent each year, and cost reduction in the metro network is critical to this objective," contends Werner Huettemann, vice president and general manager of Agilent's Communications Network Solutions. "The latest metro devices will reduce complexity and expense, but the platforms present additional test challenges. Agilent's new metro solutions will help customers meet these challenges quickly and at a lower cost than ever before," he adds.
Agilent's new and enhanced metro products include the following:
• The new Agilent OmniBER XM network simulator, which enables service verification testing for transport devices under real-life network traffic conditions. OmniBER XM provides increased test thoroughness while reducing the test time of optical cross-connects, grooming and aggregation components, and optical edge devices.
• The enhanced Agilent OmniBER OTN communications performance analyzer, which Agilent claims is the industry's first product that provides Gigabit Ethernet over SONET/SDH via generic framing procedure (GFP) and high-accuracy OTU-2 jitter testing up to 10.71 Gbits/sec.
• The improved Agilent RouterTester 900, the industry's most scalable system for validating the performance and flexibility of metro/edge routers, say company representatives. Enhancements include new interfaces and advanced testing capabilities for MPLS-VPN, IP multicast, and IPv6 services.
• A multi-port, multi-rate Ethernet test option for Agilent's Transmission Test Set that makes it a fully integrated solution for metro and core networks.
Agilent will demonstrate all of the new products for the first time at Supercomm 2002 in Atlanta, June 4 to 6. For more information, visit the company's Web site at www.agilent.com.