Alcatel takes covers off new RSP

Alcatel today officially announced that it has been shipping a new version of its 7670 Routing Switch Platform that includes several IP VPN enhancements as well as support for multimedia services and voice over IP.

The new RSP, which has been shipping since January, is playing on carriers’ desires to expand their multimedia networks to target business users with new services without being forced into a radical architecture transition. Among the most significant new hardware additions is a channelized multi-rate 48 line card, which supports 2.4 Gb/s of wire-rate IP, MPLS and ATM forwarding.

"It can be used for any mix of IP, ATM and MPLS as well as concurrent streams," said Jim Guillet, assistant vice president of broadband networks for Alcatel. "You may configure for something like ATM link layer. Nothing precludes you from doing native ATM switching. It gives carriers a kind of roadmap as we evolve toward IP."

Among the recent customer wins for the 7670 are Korea Telecom, India's VSNL, British Telecom and Slovak Telecom. Slovak said it will use the platform as a part of its IP/MPLS backbone as it moves to a packet network for voice.