ECI joins IP DSLAM rush

ECI Telecom today announced the launch of its first all IP DSLAM, joining the growing ranks of traditional vendors moving into the IP market.

Like other IP DSLAMs, the new Hi-FOCuS5 Multi-Service Access Gateway (MSAG) platform is targeted at the emerging telco video market. However, ECI also is positioning the MSAG as part of a package with the router line it picked up as part of the acquisition of Laurel Networks.

“We’ve seen a definite trend of operators trying to simplify the equation by buying as much as they can from a single vendor,” said Steve Vogelsang, vice president of marketing for ECI's Data Networking Division. “We have the advantage that we deliver both the access portion as well as the routing portion. In the end we offer a much stronger solution that is far more balanced.”

The new platform also offers one of the larger switching capacities on the market with a total of 128 Gbps. It also includes multiple 1 Gb/s and 10 Gb/s interfaces and a non-blocking architecture. Putting that much capacity into a DSLAM was driven by significant interest from telcos in being able to personalize IPTV services, said Aviv Ronai, associate vice president of marketing for ECI’s Broadband Access Division.

Among the potential services enabled by that much capacity is network-based personal video recording and personalized video on demand. In both those services, carriers must switch from multicasting to unicasting, which requires a dedicated bandwidth pipe between the content location to the user’s home.

“Today we see a lot of unicast and personalization demands,” Ronai said. “You need a lot of bandwidth coming from the network.”

Though built on ECI’s Hi-FOCuS4, the new platform also includes newly designed line cards. Currently, the vendor is offer both ADSL and ADSL 2+ cards. It is working on a GPON line card for fiber-to-the-premises deployments.

“You can even integrate storage into the platform if you want,” Ronai said.