Copper Mountain adds sub management

Copper Mountain Networks today took the wraps off of a year-old subscriber management application for its VantEdge Access broadband remote access server.

The VantEdge Subscriber Management Switch (SMX) package gives carriers what Copper Mountain believes is a tenfold improvement in performance and active subscriber capacity compared to the most widely deployed subscriber management devices. Like its BRAS product, the company is positioning the subscriber management package to be as closely aligned with the DSL Forum’s Working Text 81 document.

"With all the growth in broadband, there’s a big wave of replacement cycles,” said Keith Higgins, vice president of marketing for Copper Mountain.

The company also is positioning the package as a smarter alternative to router-based solutions. With router-based options, Higgins said, carriers must over-provision capacity and still don’t get the same type of reliability. Additionally, the package includes a range of multi-layer QoS features for applications such as gaming and packetized voice and video, which is where most DSLAM vendors are aiming their efforts.

“BRAS functionality is where there’s a strong business case for upgrading the network,” he said. “For a lot of people that have [Alcatel’s] ASAMs (Advanced Services Access Manager), some of them can be upgraded with an IP card and some can’t.”