May 10, 2004 12:00 PM,

Adva brings its EFM gear to U.S.

By Ed Gubbins

Adva Optical Networking today introduced its FSP 150 Ethernet access equipment to the United States following the gear’s European debut in March.

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Adva’s FSP 150 is based on the IEEE’s 802.3ah standard—also called the Ethernet First Mile standard—which is expected to be ratified this summer. The device itself, which can handle traffic rates between 1 Mb/s and 1 Gb/s in 1-Mb/s increments, can be used to aggregate metro Ethernet traffic over a shared infrastructure, linking central office gear with existing Ethernet switches at the customer premises at a cost far lower than that incurred using dedicated networks.

"When a service provider tries to deploy an Ethernet service, it’s usually with a router," said Adva’s chief marketing and strategy officer Brian McCann. "Routers take time to set up and configure, and you have to be a certified router specialist. Meanwhile, the T-1 business has all been just plug and play; they’re fixed circuits. You don’t really provision anything at the customer premises; it’s all done at the central office Sonet box. With this platform, we’ve made [Ethernet service] much more like a T-1 mux solution."

"We don’t provide the actual router," he added. "We provide the connectivity to get from the Ethernet port at the building to the metro Ethernet world."

The gear’s "dual tandem node" feature, a proprietary software solution, offers protection similar to that of Sonet or resilient packet ring technology, which is too expensive for access networks, McCann said.

As part of the vendor’s pursuit of the American market, Adva’s CEO, Brian Protiva, will relocate to New Jersey after having been based in Germany throughout Adva’s 10-year history. Adva has an OEM agreement with Fujitsu, which sells Adva’s Ethernet and wavelength-division multiplexing gear in America. Adva is likely to sell its new FSP 150 directly to U.S. customers for a while before working with Fujitsu to sell the gear domestically, McCann said.

"We’re really making a big push here in the Americas," he added.